


Until the Morning Glories Fade

by Xairathan



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/type Redline
Genre: Beauty and the Beast AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-18 01:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 59,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21869584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/pseuds/Xairathan
Summary: Here it is, my last long work for the forseeable future. I'm posting today in honor of Fate/Type Redline being released, with further updates to come biweekly.Some fun facts about this fic:- It's even older (as an idea) than 'Hanami', my first oknb longfic- It was written at an average speed of 2,000 words a dayShoutout to Wesakechak for the conversation that inspired this fanfic, and to corgasbord and WiredLain for being my devoted beta readers and feedback dispensers.
Relationships: Oda Nobunaga | Archer/Okita Souji | Sakura Saber, Oda Nobunaga/Okita Souji | Demon Archer/Sakura Saber
Comments: 7
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, my last long work for the forseeable future. I'm posting today in honor of Fate/Type Redline being released, with further updates to come biweekly. 
> 
> Some fun facts about this fic:  
> \- It's even older (as an idea) than 'Hanami', my first oknb longfic  
> \- It was written at an average speed of 2,000 words a day
> 
> Shoutout to Wesakechak for the conversation that inspired this fanfic, and to corgasbord and WiredLain for being my devoted beta readers and feedback dispensers.

The duties of a Shinsengumi member are simple. Patrol Kyoto. Keep the peace. Obey the Shinsengumi code. Uphold the law. It’s rare that in a time like this, a captain would be given an assignment directly. 

It’s even rarer that such an assignment would be delivered behind closed doors.

Okita plays with the tasuki crossed in front of her haori, winding the cords between her fingers. To her left, Hijikata paces at the window. Kondo sits as he always does, in the  _ seiza _ position behind his writing desk, riffling through a collection of papers with torn edges and dog-eared corners. 

Okita lets her gaze wander: over the deliberate spread of notes on Kondo’s desk, past Hijikata leaning against the wall, out the window. The grip of autumn has just begun to seize Kyoto. The city’s leaves turn in the wind with thrilling flares of orange reminiscent of fire. It’s a reminder to Okita of what could have been, what the Shinsengumi had prevented. Kyoto stands unburned because of what they’d done. The thought brings a swell of pride to her chest, enough to quell the hints of fateful fluttering that had begun to gather, an iron taste at the base of her tongue. 

Kondo clears his throat, raps his fingers against his desk. Hijikata turns away from the window, sharp eyes darting from his Commander to their Captain. 

“We’ve got an odd one for you, Souji,” Kondo says. “We can’t spare more than one man to check on a simple rumor, so you’ll have to be the one.” 

“A rumor?” Okita frowns, weight shifting to the side unburdened by her katana. “When did the Shinsengumi take up the work of investigating rumors?”

“Maybe the term ‘urban legend’ would be more accurate,” Kondo says. Hijikata grunts, stepping away from the wall, his hand slashing through the air in a harsh gesture.

“It’s more than that,” he grumbles. “When the reports from the past years were turned over to us, we noticed a pattern. I had one of the others look into it, and it goes very far back. Enough to warrant investigation, as far-fetched as it seems.”

Okita glances from one man to the other, fingers curling past the edge of her haori. This is no normal meeting. She’d guessed it from the moment she set foot in the room to find Hijikata and Kondo both, but now it’s clear to see. Kondo is always like this, a bit too casual for someone leading a samurai group, but Hijikata— he’s wound tight. All about form and function; for him to be here, to speak over Kondo so readily, means something must be wrong.

“What is it?” Okita asks. 

“Occasional reports of disappearances,” Kondo says. “All of them occurring on the same day near the end of the tenth month— today. All of them located in the forests leading north out of Kyoto. Most of them merchants, some of them travelers, all of them returning around the start of summer.” Kondo taps a few pages thoughtfully, ink-stained fingers smudging over the paper. “All of them claiming to have been chased for months by some sort of flaming monster.”

“Youkai don’t exist,” is Okita’s immediate response. Hijikata’s snort indicates his approval, but the narrowing of his eyes says otherwise. Of course— long-time comrades or not, they’re still all working under Kondo’s supervision. “I mean, why do you think these reports are credible?”

“It would be one thing if they were all made in the past decade, or even two.” Kondo scoops up sheafs of paper, revealing an even older, more blotted jumble beneath. “But Hijikata’s subordinate’s investigation turned up quite a few more.”

“Dating back at least a hundred years,” Hijikata says. “Some from… families of some repute. Far too consistent to be some prank or mass hallucination. And there’s been a fair number in the recent years.”

“So you want me to go to the forest, see if there’s anything there, and come back.” 

“Precisely.” Kondo pushes the papers to the side, shrugging slightly under Hijikata’s unwavering glare. “At the very least, we can say with confidence that it’s nothing. If it turns out there is something there, I’m certain you'll be able to take care of it.”

“Maybe it’s an underground fire,” Okita muses. “Started by lightning.”

“Maybe.” Hijikata folds his arms over his haori, tasuki knocking against his bare chest. “Still, it’s worth following up on. Go to the main road, patrol it for a few hours, come back before sundown. And bring me some takuan. I’m almost out.”

“Standard boundary patrol, takuan. Understood.” Okita bows stiffly, twice: once to Hijikata, once to Kondo, slightly deeper. Her sword knocks against her side, and she catches its hilt in her palm. Slipping down the stairs and into the streets, she melds quickly into the city’s currents, a stream of people navigating the tangle of straight-lined streets and branching alleyways. 

Moving alongside the river, Okita lets herself be carried along: a figure of pink and blue, blurred in the ever-changing water. She takes it in: city, people, and river, all in a single breath. The murmur of vendors and their customers, the ever-droning cicadas, the river’s gentle rushing. This is her city— not her home, but the one she’s come to know, to safeguard as she would her own flesh.

(That’s how Kondo had described it, once, protecting Kyoto against the incursions of the enemy. Then had come Ikedaya; then had come the diagnosis, and Okita’s wondered since if she still has a purpose in this city, if only so it won’t be marred by her own wasting.)

Okita’s path carries her far beyond the traveled quarters, to the base of the hills. In this empty space, she no longer needs to keep her sword so tight to her, but rests her off hand on it anyway. On solo missions like these, even a moment’s preparation could prove a critical difference. Kondo had drilled that into her; Ikedaya had proved it. 

(It had proved, as well, that Kondo was wrong about some things. Perhaps there was honor in striking down the enemy, but Kondo had never mentioned what lurked in the spray of their blood. Okita hadn’t felt fear, but she’d felt something, a feeling so akin to doubt that she’d been glad to find it was blood strangling her lungs and not regret, even as she’d drowned in it.)

The northern road isn’t one that Okita’s well familiar with, but she knows its general shape, the way the forests should feel. She knows to mark her departure from the main road with low-hanging branches snapped at the ends, all at eye level. She knows to stop and listen for whether something might be following her (nothing ever is), to return to the main road every once in a while to right her bearings (she does, every hour or so).

Until, as the sun begins to near the horizon, the road disappears. 

With it go the broken twigs. 

Okita’s first worry isn’t that she’s lost the trail. She’s done that once today already, having been distracted watching the birds flit overhead that she hadn’t noticed herself wandering deeper into the woods. It’s a simple matter to right herself in the opposite direction and continue until she recognizes something. What she thinks of is Hijikata’s takuan, and making it back before Hijikata’s had his smoke. There’s an order to Hijikata’s madness: takuan, smoke, bath. A deviation from that would be second only to breaking the Shinsengumi code.

That trivial worry lasts all of several moments, up until the last rays of sunlight deliver their last caress to the hilltops. Darkness settles quickly. In a valley like this one, dusk is a fleeting window of breath passed between day and night. Branches concealed in the shadows of trees grasp at her sleeves. The hillside wears on, far beyond what sense would dictate is possible. With the moon poised directly overhead, it’s impossible to tell which direction she’s going in, or even why the moon is in such a position this early in the night.

Uncertainty yields to open unease. Hurrying now through the forest with no heed to the crunch of leaves underfoot, Okita peels bark from the trunks of trees, anything to mark the places she’s already walked. It’s something, and it’s progress. Okita hurries forward, emboldened by a maze of untouched trunks. For a fleeting moment, she dares to hope. She must be heading back to Kyoto, now. She’ll be late; Hijikata and the others won’t let her live down the indignity of getting lost in the forest, but she’ll be home.

Okita comes into a clearing just as the moon shakes off the train of clouds blotting out its light. Silvery rays cascade between the trees, illuminating a hundred pale patches, gaps in the bark freshly worn by Okita’s fingers. This is the result of her aimless walking. The passing hours crash upon her all at once: Okita’s knees nearly give with her fatigue, and she can feel her lungs seizing, having labored for so long in vain. Okita teeters on the verge of collapse, the cool night air passing over her tongue taking on the taste of bitter iron. Not now, she pleads with herself, not here. Not so far from Kyoto and the road, though no one would be out at this time of night to hear her anyway. 

Okita staggers to the nearest tree, clinging to its branches for support. The iron tang rises to the back of her throat. If she could just fight it off— if she could last just a little longer— 

With a violent shudder, Okita’s grip is torn from the tree. She lands hard on her back, the impact and its rattling of her bones lost to the cough that wracks its way free, bursting from her into the night. Blood speckles her skin, hot like shame on her cheeks. It’s a small fit, it’ll pass if she could get a breath; if only she could get a breath, do anything more than roll pitifully onto her side and spit more blood onto the dirt. Twigs tangle in her hair, digging against her scalp with each jerk of her head. For the first time, Okita doesn’t question how long her fit will be, but if she’ll be alive to see its end. Air becomes an unthinkable thing; being lost is no longer a concern. The forest is forgotten. The world composes itself into a single thought: she can’t breathe. There’s blood in her lungs and her throat and her mouth, no air can get past it, and she can’t spit it out fast enough. She’s going to die alone in this forest, drowned on dry land by her own body’s failings, thought a deserter and condemned, stripped of her honor and forgotten. Kondo and Hijikata will think her a traitor. Yamanami wouldn’t even have known where or why she’d gone— 

Another series of coughs wrings its way through Okita, forcing her eyes to close. It’s getting darker: a greying of her vision, or a masking of the moon with clouds. Okita doesn’t know, nor does she think of it. Her fingers tap weakly at her own chest, attempting to soothe her struggling lungs. Okita is no coward, but even she can’t stop her body from screaming for escape, even if that means a darkening of her mind, a slow slip towards thoughtless oblivion. 

The world, devoid of color, begins to fade. Okita sinks against the ground, its coolness unfelt. Splayed fingers fill her narrow field of vision, continuing to shrink with each passing second. What might be a flickering of life at its edges is ignored, and quickly lost. Not even that glowing warmth surrounding her is enough for Okita to pay it any mind. She’s too far gone— her thoughts of black and white and red, too numbed to register the dancing orange light before her for what it is. 


	2. Chapter 2

The weight of sleep recedes from Okita with the movement of the moon and the going of the tide. This place is too quiet to be the shore of wakening, she thinks. She’s used to being roused by the shouts of her comrades, Hijikata’s thundering over the rest, or else the violent churning in her chest like waves in a storm.

A ceiling familiar only for its traditional make; a warm futon with blankets layered over her; a wooden slat window that reveals more open sky than treetops. Pieces of Okita’s life seemingly plucked from her memory and threaded together: her family’s mansion in Edo; the inns she’d stayed at on the way to Kyoto; her room in the Shinsengumi’s base. Okita’s eyes, narrowed from equal parts concentration and sleepiness, find focus in the stars. They’re as they would appear from Kyoto, something that brings relief to Okita’s anxious heart. At least she isn’t far from home.

Okita slides a hand out from beneath the blankets. Holding it up overhead, she watches the moonlight glide between her fingers. Her hands aren’t tied: her haori makes it impossible to mistake where her allegiance lies, so she hasn’t been captured by _sonno joi_ samurai. Another long sigh, brimming with relief. She’s probably in one of the lesser-known temples, the ones that trade ease of accessibility for atmosphere. Okita’s never visited one, but maybe their monks would be eccentric enough to go wandering where lost travelers might be.

Not that she’d been lost, Okita hurriedly corrects herself. Just turned around. Oh, she’ll have such a good time explaining this to Kondo and Hijikata. Once they’re done laughing at her, maybe they’ll give her the rest of the day to regain her strength. Or— if she could get back early enough, maybe she’d be able to escape Hijikata’s scolding and settle for Kondo’s brand of mild disapproval.

Sudden footfalls shatter Okita’s thoughts into irreparable splinters. They’re light and fast, not in any cadence Okita might recognize. She casts her eyes around the room: her katana’s in the furthest corner, propped against the wall, haori slung carefully over its guard. There’s enough time for her to reach it, if only she can just get up.

Okita wills herself forward. Her body tumbles sluggishly in the direction of the door just as it slides open, golden firelight flooding over the wooden floor. Someone walks in, kicks the door shut, kneels at Okita’s side. Their fingertips graze her forehead, burning hot: the chill from having been outside for so long must not yet have faded entirely.

“Where…” Okita begins, and can’t go on. The air in this room feels too heavy. It’s normal; it’s just air, but it feels wrong. Okita’s vision swims, and the figure beside her with it. All she can make out is a dark blur swaying indistinctly in the corner of her eye. Her throat tightens, the telltale sign that precedes the encroaching taste of iron.

“I’ll tell you when you wake up,” the figure says, their voice high-pitched and scratchy. Their hands press lightly on Okita’s shoulders, settling her into the futon. “Just rest for a bit longer. Once you’re better, I’ll answer whatever questions you have.”

Okita’s expression morphs into one of discontent even as her eyelids droop and begin to fall. The deep breath she tries to take widens into a drawn-out yawn. Perhaps the person beside her chuckles; perhaps it’s a crackling of the flames illuminating the hall outside. Okita doesn’t know which it is. Such a thought is beyond her. What lies before her is darkness, the temptation of sleep. Not for the first time, she drifts off with the promise of blood lingering at the back of her mouth and a prayer that it won’t wake her after all.

(For the first time, the thought of whether she’ll wake at all does not cross her thoughts. Her weariness has chased it from her mind. That there might be any other reason for it is as unthinkable as Okita’s voiceless and only wish, that when her sickness overtakes her, it won’t be when she’s alone.)

* * *

Sunlight streams in through the windows and over Okita’s face, blurring that enigmatic boundary between here and the world of her dreams. In spite of it, Okita knows instantly where she is. Okita hardly remembers what it felt like to live without this heaviness in her chest and a fragility to the way she breathes, carefully, in perpetual fear of another attack of coughing. She’d passed it off to Kondo and Hijikata as part of her fighting style, modified in the wake of Ikedaya. She thinks they’d believed her, but she can’t be sure. The only sureties these days are the weight of her sword against her palms and the stench of blood clinging to her skin.

From nearby comes a clattering, the sound of wood on wood. That blurred figure from the night before lowers themselves to the ground beside Okita, setting a tray down between them. In the fresh daylight, their form is clear. Still, Okita can’t help but bring her hands to her eyes, trying to clear away the lingering smear of sleepiness. There’s no need for torchlight now that the sun’s out. There should be no looming shadows if the sun is to Okita’s back.

What Okita sees remains no matter how many times she blinks, no matter what she does. In spite of the morning warmth and the fire in front of her, a chill shoots down Okita’s spine. She can’t even tear her eyes away to glance at where her sword should be. Her gaze is fixed on the creature in front of her, drifting embers for skin and fire for tendons, bones red as blood beneath, billowing black smoke for hair. A red cape draped over angled collarbones. They’re clad in military dress similar to the Western style Okita had seen taking hold in Edo, sharp gold buttons and close-fitted trousers.

Two shouts go up simultaneously, Okita’s one of sheer surprise. A member of the Shinsengumi shouldn’t be so quick to startle or show fear, but protocol be damned, a member of the Shinsengumi shouldn’t ever be staring down a creature like this, straight out of the stories that marching armies had swapped when they’d stopped for camp. The skeleton’s jaw opens wide, voice and flame howling, gripping one of their arms. The clear outlines of fire and bones that Okita had seen are gone. What’s taken their place is a whirling grey outline, ash breathed into life with the fury of a firestorm, licks of flame protruding from gaps that reveal what might almost pass for human skin.

With the skeleton distracted, now’s the time to act. Okita’s sword is where it had been the night before. Okita pushes herself up onto her knees, tries to stand, and feels her legs give beneath her. She sprawls out on the futon, limbs splayed wide, defenseless. She can’t even gather her legs beneath her; the fatigue from the night before hasn’t fully left her yet, and here’s a frantic, fleeting thought: where on the scale of honor does ‘being killed by a youkai’ fall?

“Wait!” the skeleton calls out, holding their hands up placatingly. “I’m human, I promise!”

“You’re…” Okita rolls onto her back, arms crossed defensively over her torso. The pressure on her lungs abates only slightly, but still enough for her to manage a few quick breaths. “Are you a youkai?” she manages to ask.

“I told you yesterday, I’ll explain everything.” The skeleton reaches down, raps blazing knuckles against the tray. A single ceramic cup inches in Okita’s direction, dark green liquid sloshing at its edges. “Have some tea.”

“How do I know you haven’t poisoned it?” Okita says, though she still reaches for the tray, pulling it up to the edge of the futon.

“Why would I want to poison anyone?” the skeleton counters. “Also, if I’d wanted you dead, you’ve kind of been sleeping for the past ten hours or so.”

The skeleton has a point. Okita feels a groan working its way between her teeth. To suppress it, she grabs the cup and takes a long sip, only to sputter half the liquid back into the cup and the other half onto the floor. “Why’s it so bitter?” she gasps, trying to wipe her tongue on the back of her hand.

“Do I look like I’ve tasted tea in ages?” the skeleton says, gesturing at themselves. A bony finger darts out to tap the side of the cup, escaping droplets of tea sizzling into steam. “I don’t remember the right amount of powder to use anymore.”

“Why do you look like that, anyway?” Okita’s fingers work their way around the cup, tugging it back towards her. A second tasting finds the tea bearable in small amounts, if only just.

“I’m— well, I guess you could call me a cursed spirit.” The skeleton settles down opposite Okita, elbows balanced on their knees and skull plopped in upturned hands. “But I was human, once. I was betrayed by my comrade and left for dead. I managed to survive and escape into this forest, but I’d been too badly hurt.” The skeleton’s flames flicker in an unseen wind, their skull turning slightly upward. They have no eyes, but Okita can still imagine them staring into some far-off memory, no longer expressionless but bearing the faint vestiges of faded humanity. “So to survive, I made a deal with the spirits in this forest. They saved my life, but they cursed me as well. I was made to appear like this, and cut off from the rest of the world.”

“But not entirely, right?” Okita pushes herself to her knees, regaining her composure. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to make it here. And all those other reports of a monster living up in the forest wouldn’t have found their way to us, would they?”

“Us?”

“The samurai of Kyoto,” Okita says hastily, tightening her grip on the cup. “There’s times when this place crosses over with the real world, aren’t there?”

“Smart,” the skeleton says. They can’t smile any more than their perpetual grin allows them, but the lift in their tone tells Okita that they’d be smiling if they could. “There’s two times. You know one of them.”

“And the other?”

“The summer solstice.”

The cup slips entirely from Okita’s grasp, clattering noisily to the floor, tea scattering over the wood. “What?” she says, glancing from the skeleton to the window and back. “I can’t be here that long. That’s— that’s eight months. If I’m gone that long, the others will— ”

Okita doubles over, palms pressed to the edge of the futon. The skeleton begins to rise, approaching at a crouch, steam hissing from where their fingers skim the surface of the spilled tea. “Hey,” they say, voice low and quiet. “You gotta breathe.”

“I have to go back!” Okita wills her feet to work, her legs to let her stand. Her knees dig hard into the floor, and that’s it. “I have to go home!” The lingering dregs of tea flee her mouth, replaced by an even more acrid taste. Okita clamps a hand to her lips, heaving into her palm. She’s only vaguely aware of the skeleton drawing closer, reaching out with hesitant hands.

“Lie down,” the skeleton is telling her. Their grip on Okita’s shoulders is firm, yet gentle. In spite of the fire licking up their bones, their touch is hardly warmer than Okita expects. “Whatever this is, you’re going to make it worse if you keep moving around like this.”

“I need— to go back— ”

“You can’t.” The skeleton tilts their head, golden sunlight catching in the smoke coming off them. In it, the light streaming through their eye sockets seems almost sympathetic. “Not until the summer solstice. It’s just how things are here. It can’t be helped.”

“I can’t…” Okita’s chest spasms slightly, and that’s it. Fresh blood rips from her lungs and fills her throat, her mouth. She coughs it into her hand until it’s spilling over between the gaps in her fingers, threatening to drip onto her kimono.

“You need to rest,” the skeleton says. Their hands come up and envelop Okita’s, surprisingly cautious in their approach. The blood on Okita’s fingers cracks, dries, crumbles into flakes easily eaten away by flames that Okita doesn’t feel. “That’s what you need to do. Once you’re better, if you really want to find a way back to Kyoto, I won’t stop you. But I’m telling you, you won’t find one.”

“What if I don’t?” Okita musters a glare at the skeleton, pulling back. She doesn’t really tug herself free: the skeleton lets her go, and nods with apparent satisfaction at the thump Okita makes against the futon. “Or are you gonna watch me the whole time to make sure I don’t try anything?”

“No need.” The skeleton scoops up the fallen cup, balancing it on their fingers. “I don’t think you could make it far if you tried, right now.”

They’re right. Okita hates to admit it, but what strength she’d gathered overnight has dwindled into nothing, disappearing faster than a turning of the skeleton’s flames. She’ll be stuck here at minimum until she can recover, and if the skeleton isn’t lying—

Okita thinks of a night before Ikedaya, of Serizawa dead and one of his men ordered to commit seppuku. She remembers the way he’d grit his teeth, the stiffening of his spine as he’d turned his blade to make the upward cut. That was when he’d been beheaded, leaving only a strip of skin for his head to hang from, the proper killing stroke. Even that man had been granted a second to spare him the full account of his pain, but would there be a second for someone who’d deserted the Shinsengumi? Would Hijikata and Kondo even believe her; if they did, would they be the ones to wield the blade?

“Hey.” The skeleton speaks, again disrupting Okita’s thoughts. They’ve stood up, though they still hover over Okita, gazing down at her with that same inscrutable grin. “I’m gonna get you some more tea,” they say. Their voice has taken on a softer note, though why, Okita could only try to guess. “Just— try and avoid coughing up more blood, alright? If you want anything, I’ll get it for you.”

“How do you even have tea here, anyway?” Okita closes her eyes, grinding the back of her head into the pillow. “I can’t imagine you get regular supply deliveries in a place like this.”

“This castle provides what its inhabitants need.” The skeleton taps the floor with two fingers, the incline of their head almost appreciative. “Must’ve been part of the deal I made. Whatever the reason, it’s come in handy.”

“Have you taken anyone else in?”

“The merchants usually kept to themselves,” the skeleton says. “I’d have to sneak them supplies. There were some travelers, long before your time. They’d find the castle and stay in it, and then there’d be this whole business of trying to avoid each other.” The skeleton nods almost fondly as they step towards the door. “You’re the first one I’ve spoken to.”

“What a privilege,” retorts Okita.

“Think of it as you will. I’ll be back,” the skeleton says, slipping out the door. A moment later, the thud of their footsteps echoes on what must be a staircase, vanishing into the distance.

Settling onto her back, Okita’s eyes find the window once again. Eight whole months here. So much could happen in that time. Kyoto had been swaying beneath the winds of change already when she’d left. Would the Shinsengumi be there when she returned; would she even survive that long?

No— she can’t think like that. Okita closes her eyes, counts out her breaths. The men of the Shinsengumi may be opportunist dogs, like Hijikata says, but they’re led by wolves. Hijikata and Kondo won’t let them crumble so easily. And, though Okita’s loathe to admit it, perhaps there’s a point to this idleness after all. She’ll come back to Kyoto refreshed from her rest, ready to continue the work that others may have tired of. There’s a purpose to all this, she tells herself, if only she can keep those thoughts of failure from her mind.

But without them, there’s little else to think of. The skeleton’s black coat, the treetops swaying outside. Eyes still closed, she tries to imagine something inane. Nothing comes to mind. What fills that emptiness are doubts just as quickly dismissed as thought of and naive wishes saved for the unreality of sleep. They tangle together, drag Okita into the deep, make the sun a distant memory. They take the creaking wood beside her into her dreams: Okita Souji has no partner, works alone, and so any suggestion otherwise cannot possibly be a thing of reality.

* * *

Gradually, the world returns to its sharp clarity. This time, Okita is aware of it. She’s aware of something moving around at its edges. The skeleton, she thinks. How long have they been here? They’d mentioned something that last time. Forgetting how much powder to add. An impression left on the underside of Okita’s eyelids: the skeleton with their head tilted up, attempting to catch droplets of tea falling from their steaming fingertips before they disappear, either at the ends of their finger bones or their flaming skull face.

Okita shakes her head, clearing it with a groan. Something shifts closeby— her host. Okita sits up slowly, takes in a breath with deliberate slowness. She feels her chest stretch with its coming and going. No pain, a good sign. No lingering scent of blood either, although there’s a hint of what might be fresh tea: that’s some diligence for a skeleton.

“Oh, good morning,” they squeak at her. “Or I guess it’d be more good afternoon by now.”

“How long…?”

“A few hours. There’s still plenty of daylight left,” the skeleton says. “Though like I said, I wouldn’t really suggest heading out with your condition.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Okita mutters. Her reticence hints at what she’ll never confess: that this was the most restful sleep she’s had in recent memory. The futons at the Shinsengumi base are like the rest of Hijikata’s decisions: pragmatic, more fit for function than comfort. They keep their inhabitants warm and their backs from aching, and that’s all that could be asked of them. What Okita’s lying on now feels more like a sea of cloud than anything that fits her idea of what a futon would be.

“Good.” The skeleton shifts closer, little sparks coming off them and darting into Okita’s field of vision. “By the way, what’s your name?”

Okita mulls over the question for a moment. It’s not in her nature to give her name away so carelessly, but these are hardly normal circumstances. What does she stand to lose from a skeleton so removed from the world? “If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours?”

“I don’t see why not. It’s only fair.”

“Okita,” Okita says. “My family name.”

“Kippoushi,” the skeleton replies. “My given name.”

“Giving me your first name right from the start?” scoffs Okita. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Why would I need to lie?” Kippoushi rolls their shoulders, licks of fire fluttering up with their movement. “Maybe I just don’t want to give you my family name. Or, maybe I don’t think myself as one of them anymore, how’s that?”

“And why not?”

“I’ve been stuck here for…” Kippoushi pauses, drumming their fingers in the air over their kneecap. “More than two hundred years, for sure. I don’t even know if my family still exists on the outside. No use clinging to the past when it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Maybe.” Okita’s reply curdles in her mouth, though she doesn’t let it show on her face. So, she’s dealing with a fool. The word fills her mind, blocks out all other thought. How else could she describe someone who’d throw away their family so easily? It’s true that family runs beyond blood; Hijikata and Kondo are proof of that, but neither of those names are from where she draws her honor. It’s _Okita_ that’s on the lips of those who know and fear her swordsmanship, _Okita_ that carries a meaning as sharp and threatening as any blade. _Souji_ — that’s a name for sealed rooms and drunken tongues; if Okita had to make the choice between her names, that would be the one she’d leave behind.

“So, Okita.” Kippoushi settles themselves into place, head cocked to one side. Their movement sends the shadows in the room spinning. Okita hadn’t realized that the sun was gone, its light now gracing the other side of the castle, the brightness in the room coming solely from Kippoushi’s body. “What’s with the coughing up blood thing?”

“None of your business,” Okita snaps immediately.

“It kinda is, if I’m going to have to take care of you,” Kippoushi says. “I didn’t see any injuries on you, unless it’s something on the inside.”

“It’s not an injury,” Okita says. “It’s— wait, how do you know?” She can feel the heat flooding to her cheeks, the rush of warmth that accompanies her rising anger. The swelling in her chest is not one of sickness, but indignation. “You looked at me?” she asks, voice creeping up in pitch. “You— you saw me— ”

“I had to make sure you weren’t gonna bleed out on me!” Kippoushi holds their hands up in front of them, as if to ward off the fury in Okita’s gaze, fiercer than their own fire. “Besides, you’re a samurai, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you guys don’t take care of your own these days!”

“Of course we do!” Okita looks down, a quick glance. Her kimono’s been carefully arranged and tied shut with a style of knot Okita’s only ever seen on the courtesans near Gion. In spite of herself, she still grabs handfuls of the covers, tugging them over her chest and up to her neck. “I just— we don’t know each other!”

“And?” Kippoushi says. “We’re not at war with each other. You’re a guest in my home. I guess you could say we’re even on the same side, since we’re both stuck here. I thought you were hurt. You think I’d just leave you bleeding like that?”

“Well…” Okita wrenches her eyes away towards the window. The castle’s shadow veils the forest, a mock-night making the trees appear as nothing more than silhouettes. “You could’ve asked,” she says.

“While you were coughing up blood and couldn’t even string together a sentence,” says Kippoushi. “Right.”

Okita doesn’t have a response for that. She keeps staring out at nothing, pointedly avoiding looking back at Kippoushi. The truth is, she’d never considered it. The men of the Shinsengumi grit their teeth and bear their wounds with pride aged from pain. They call doctors for the injured, yes, but only when asked to, only when necessary. The idea that a samurai wouldn’t be able to carry themselves home aside from all but the most grievous of injuries is laughable. Even Okita, unsteady and woozy in the aftermath of Ikedaya, had managed to walk back to their base with little protest.

Honor, then the mission, then the code. That was the way Okita approached matters of the Shinsengumi. She’d been a distant fourth priority, maybe even a fifth. The song of her swinging blade had been one of her rare indulged pleasures. It’s why she’d argued Kondo and Hijikata to a standstill, wanting to be given assignments, wanting as much to wield her katana as to be useful to the Shinsengumi.

“Then,” Kippoushi says, a gentle but sudden breaking of their fragile silence. “I should tell you more about this place. You’ll find what you need generally in the place you’d look for it. Like food, that’s on the ground floor, in the kitchen. If you can’t make the walk, I’ll bring it for you. Oh, and this place can only handle basic things. Like if you wanted tea, you’d find a pot and water and powder, and you’d have to make it yourself.”

“I’ll do that, then.” Okita’s eyes narrow slightly at the window. “I don’t have any intentions of letting you test your tea-making skills on me.”

“Was it really that bad?” asks Kippoushi. Okita doesn’t deign to answer. She hears the creak of wood as they shift their weight again, their near-inaudible sigh. “That’s mostly it. I tend to wander around the castle, so I’ll come if you shout or make enough noise. Oh, and one more thing. You can go anywhere you like here, but stay away from the top floor.”

Okita nearly looks at them, her curiosity getting the best of her. “What’s up there?”

“Just my room,” Kippoushi says. “But you’d best stay clear of it. You don’t want to end up being cursed like me, do you?”

“And end up looking like that?” Okita can’t help but laugh. “No thanks.”

“See, I knew you’d agree.” Kippoushi gets to their feet, spindly bone limbs stretching for the ceiling. “You don’t look good in red.”

Okita’s smile fades, replaced by a carefully regulated frown. Kippoushi doesn’t seem to mind it, or if they do, their voice doesn’t show any sign of it. “I’ll go bring you the things from the kitchen,” they say. “So you can show me how it is you make tea these days.”

Okita acknowledges their receding footsteps with little more than a nod. She continues pondering the window, or pretending to. This is her reality now: this small sphere of trees and open sky, a skeleton from a past age who’s thrown away honor for sentiment. That’s a mistake Okita won’t catch herself making. Outside the barrier, there’s something she needs to return to.

Eight months inside this place, while the world moves on around her. Suddenly, some part of Okita thinks she understands. She can leave; Kippoushi can’t. To hold on to ideas of what might be, slowly fading over the years, would’ve driven her insane. Okita shakes her head again, but this time the thoughts don’t disappear. If anything, they cling as tightly to her as the castle’s shadow to its side. But even those will shift; they’ll lengthen with the setting sun and repeat their dance with the coming and going of the moon. Okita’s what will remain static, locked away from the world, cut off from its ebb and flow. What an ironic hell to find herself in, for someone who’d wanted nothing more than for Japan to stay as it had been.

* * *

It takes little more than a few days for Okita to realize she’s lost her sense of time. She’d asked Kippoushi how long it had been since the passage opened, and received little more than an unconcerned shrug. Why they’d laughed when Okita hurled her tea at them is beyond her, and she hadn’t given it a second thought as she’d stormed out of the room.

Eight months. The Shinsengumi will need her sword when she comes back, assuming they’ll take her in— no, why wouldn’t they? She isn’t a deserter. She doesn’t want to be here. She’s being held against her will (though it’s no fault of Kippoushi’s)—

Down the flights of stairs, past the sliding door, into the square courtyard lined by overgrown brush. Okita draws her sword and rests its scabbard on the wooden deck. She’d have tied it to her side, but she has no interest in undoing her obi in a place where Kippoushi might be watching from the windows. Instead, she steps out between the thick-grown branches, swinging her sword in careful circles.

It’s been long enough that Okita’s sickness has passed. Still, she takes herself through her first motions slowly. A lifting of her sword over her head, a turn, the tightly controlled descent. Okita feels nothing wrong with herself, only a stirring in her limbs, the fulfilling weight of her sword becoming merely an extension of her arms.

Faster. Okita works through her practice forms, sandals scraping over stone. She crosses the length of the courtyard and doubles back, the point of her katana painting the air silver. The sharp clack of boots on wood tells her Kippoushi’s arrived. She ignores the heat of their gaze burning into her back. There’s no room for distractions on the battlefield. Okita’s mindset is as well-practiced as her body. Kondo had drilled that into her, that ever-present readiness to fight and to kill. It had been just as important, perhaps even more so, than the mere ability to swing a sword.

Okita reaches the other end of the courtyard and turns to go back the way she came. Kippoushi’s standing there, in her way. They’ve shed their cape, the length of red cloth draped carefully over the side of the walkway beside her scabbard. Without its covering, the sword at Kippoushi’s side is revealed, a sword with a black sheath attached to their belt by a set of rings. A katana, but mounted like a Western officer’s sabre.

“Practicing?” Kippoushi says, moving closer. Okita doesn’t give ground, nor lower her blade. This is her space Kippoushi’s stepped into. She will yield none of it. “If you wanna do more than just wave your sword around, I can be your partner.”

“You?” Okita says.

“Come on,” laughs Kippoushi. Their arms gesture upward at the walls surrounding them on all sides. “You didn’t think someone who lives in a place like this used to be a commoner, did you?”

“How would I know?” Okita bites back. “It’s not like I’ve met any other flaming skeletons I can ask about their lifestyles.”

“Ah, I guess that’s true.” Kippoushi’s hands fall to their side, one wrapped tight around their katana’s scabbard, the other at its hilt. “So? What’ll it be?”

“Sure,” Okita says. “Why not.” Dislike or not, there’s no sense in turning down an opportunity to keep her skills honed.

Okita waits for Kippoushi to draw their katana, and that’s all. She’s running forward as soon as its tip has left the scabbard, blade held close over her shoulder, bringing it down in a swift slash over their chest. Kippoushi gets their sword up in time, blade up and angled slightly towards them to take the blow. They don’t get to relax; Okita draws back and swings again, this time coming in low, a swipe barely avoided by Kippoushi dancing backwards.

It’s harder to hit a skeleton with no meat on it, Okita realizes. That’s a thought she’s never had before. And it doesn’t matter. She only needs to bring her strokes in tighter, sharper. Her katana forms a whirling mass of brightness, the sun catching the flat of her blade as it winds in effortless concert against Kippoushi’s. For once, Kippoushi has nothing to say. Their face betrays nothing, but Okita imagines it to be contorted in concentration. The only sounds in the courtyard are the shuffle of their shoes and the clang of their swords, Okita’s measured breathing and the puff of Kippoushi’s fire.

Okita’s sword comes in close to their ribcage, stopped just short by the guard of Kippoushi’s katana. Kippoushi thrusts her blade away; Okita doesn’t stagger back so much as take the force of the push, catching herself on the heels of her feet in preparation to leap forward. So close. She’d needed only a few centimeters more. Is there a heart beneath that fire-clad ribcage? It doesn’t concern Okita. That’s not where she’s aiming.

Kippoushi remains where they are, waiting for Okita to come to them. That’s fine. That’s what Okita wants. The distance is perfect. The precision of her strike depends all on that gap to be closed, after all. Three steps. Okita’s arms hover over her shoulder. The blade turns towards Kippoushi’s neck. With the sun to her back, there’s no way this can miss. Perhaps it’s better Kippoushi has no expression to read. Okita’s heart can’t be swayed once she’s become like this, but she’ll still have to recollect herself in the aftermath.

A flawless strike. Three simultaneous thrusts, two on either side of Kippoushi’s neck, and one going for the head. Okita feels the first two miss, no flesh to slow her blade, but the last strikes true. Kippoushi staggers back, a nick in their spine rapidly disappearing, faint wisps of soot blackening the edge of Okita’s katana.

“Wow.” Kippoushi rubs the place where their throat would be, stirring embers and grey wisps over their hand. The other holds their katana still, but lowered: they acknowledge their defeat. “That’s some technique,” they say, their jawbone working to either side as if they’d shrugged off a hard punch, and nothing more. “Is that what you samurai use these days?”

“No.” Okita’s eyes dart to the place where her scabbard rests. She spares Kippoushi no second glance as she moves over to it, holding it to her side and sheathing her blade with a click of the guard to the wooden mouth. Only then does the hardness in her eyes begin to fade. “That’s my technique alone,” she says, the words heavy on her tongue. Sandanzuki, the three-piece thrust. A stroke of the sword guaranteed to kill any man, but this was no man she’d fought. She’d fought Kippoushi with no restraint; she’d struck to kill.

She’d just wanted to go home, Okita tells herself. No, she shouldn’t even need to justify it. Kippoushi is a ghost of the past, a figure long erased from the world. Their disappearance, their death, wouldn’t have left any more of a mark on history than on the day they’d become trapped here. Perhaps she’d hoped, in some part of herself oft untouched by her consciousness, that killing Kippoushi would’ve made the barrier disappear. She hadn’t considered that they might not be able to die.

Okita grips her katana with both hands, seeking comfort in the cold iron and unfeeling wood. Familiarity, that’s all it can provide. Kippoushi is laughing, saying something. Their words go unheard by Okita’s ears, filled with the crushing thunder of her heartbeat. The tightness of her chest isn’t from any sickness of the body. “I’m going back to my room,” Okita says. She doesn’t know if the steel from her sword still fills her voice; she hopes it does. “Don’t follow me.”

Without looking, without waiting to see if Kippoushi’s heard, Okita heads for the stairs. Her pace is little more than a brisk, deliberate walk. For those that know Okita well, it’s all but an open sprint. She does run, once she’s certain she’s out of earshot, back up those final flights of stairs and into her room. The door flies shut behind her, and her katana is placed back in its corner. In the quiet, her clamoring heart roars all the louder. She wishes it into stillness, but it’s as willful as she is. It is herself, after all.

Settling on the futon, Okita gathers her knees under her and folds her hands in her lap. She’s never felt like this way after a fight. Sparring Kondo and Hijikata left her exhilarated; Ikedaya, tired and on the perpetual verge of collapse. She has no name to put to the hum of energy still throbbing with her pulse. There’s no word to describe that eager gleam reflected in both her eyes in sword in the moment before it connected with Kippoushi’s bones. Or perhaps there is, and Okita’s refused to acknowledge it. There’s joy in battle, but killing is all duty. She kills because Kondo and Hijikata tell her to, for the good of the Shinsengumi and Japan. If she’d struck to kill Kippoushi— it was needed. It was necessary.

Closing her eyes, Okita lets the midday sun wash over her face. For a brief moment, there’s rest. Then its orange creeps beneath the crack between her eyelids, a static and unmoving fire. Okita shakes her bangs loose, lets them drape over her eyes. The brightness fades, but it’s already too late. She’s paying for that second of lightness in her heart with its equal weight in restlessness. And if, below, those are the echoes of Kippoushi’s laughter and not the guilty remnants of that sound lingering in Okita’s mind— she doesn’t know what to make of that, either.

* * *

This becomes the new steady routine of Okita’s life. She wakes. She eats, aware of the creaking castle betraying Kippoushi’s movements on the upper floors. Then, she trains in the courtyard. Sometimes Kippoushi wanders by, offering to spar with her. Okita takes them up on it at first, and then she starts declining them with increasing frequency. Something about sparring Kippoushi feels wrong— as if, somehow, a part of Okita leaves her when they fight, and lets her strokes go wide and sloppy. Kippoushi, if they notice, makes no comment. Okita notices. Okita knows, and stops fighting Kippoushi altogether.

They don’t stop coming, though. They sit on the walkway with their cape draped over them like a blanket, and watch. Though Okita would never admit it, she watches them, too. She tells itself it’s so Kippoushi doesn’t try and attack her when her back is turned. She learns how to read that skeleton face, that the dwindling of the flames in their eye sockets means focus, and that they tire of things that cease to be new. That keeps Okita awake at night, thinking of what it might mean that Kippoushi keeps coming to her, but she doesn’t have an answer for that yet. She doesn’t think she wants one.

The day Kippoushi finally says something worth responding to is one laced with the remnants of morning frost, dew heavy on the barren trees where their branches had iced over in the night. “Okita,” they say. “I’ve been thinking. How do you know things will be the same when you go back? I mean, do you have to keep doing this if you’re not sure there’ll be something to go back to?”

“There will be,” Okita replies. She works herself through another repetition and straightens her back, dabbing sweat from her forehead with the edge of her sleeve.

“How can you be so sure?” Kippoushi presses her. The toes of their boots scrape rifts in the ground, gouging them deeper with every pass. “A lot of things can change in eight months. A lot of things can change even in a night.”

“I know,” Okita says. She would. Her world had shifted after a little scuffle at Ikedaya, after all. “I’m sure because this hasn’t changed, not in hundreds of years. You’d know about the shogun, right?”

“Who was it that won again?” Kippoushi asks her. “I don’t think I ever found out. Certainly no one ever told me.”

“The Tokugawa.” Okita turns, winding her blade in a loop over her head and back down. “And they’ve been in charge ever since. Some things don’t change. The emperor is still the emperor. The Tokugawa are still shoguns. As long as there’s a shogun to fight under, then I’ll have something to go back to.”

“Always with the fighting.” Kippoushi’s legs scrape to a stop. For the first time since their last sparring match, Kippoushi drops into the courtyard, hands shoved deep in the pockets of their coat. “Why do you love fighting so much? Haven’t you ever stopped and appreciated the value of peace?”

“I don’t need to.” Okita draws her arms back and thrusts the air in front of her twice, following up with a slash: a warning to Kippoushi. Any nearer, and they’ll risk the bite of Okita’s sword. Push her any harder, and she’ll respond in kind. “A samurai such as yourself should understand. I’ve devoted my life to the Sh- to my group and to my sword. What more do I need besides that?”

“And this group of yours,” Kippoushi says. “How close are they to you?”

“I can trust them to take care of me,” Okita snaps. “If that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“Just asking.” Kippoushi hums a mild sigh out into the open. “I used to be part of a pretty tight group, too— and then one of them turned on me. What I’m saying is, maybe you’re right, and everything you know will still be there when you get out of here. But maybe it won’t, and it can’t hurt you to think about it.”

“Or maybe that’s what you think.” Kippoushi is still where they’d stopped, a handful of paces away. There’s no way they’d be able to make it to Okita without making some sound, a warning of their attack. Okita lets herself turn away from them: to complete her next move, and nothing more. It’s not because her usual mask of expressionlessness has faltered— it’s not.

Hijikata and Kondo: Okita trusts them. They’d seen the reports that had led to this assignment. They’d believe her. If no one else— they wouldn’t turn on her. They’d have no reason to. She’s not like Serizawa, wild and unreliable. When she’d gone with Kondo and Hijikata to cut him down in the night, her thoughts hadn’t been those of betrayal, but of duty and the honor of the Shinsengumi.

“What’d you do?” Okita says, turning back towards Kippoushi. They tilt their head at her, confused. “To get your comrades to betray you.”

“You think it was something I did?” A flare of fire darts up from their skull, a hint at what might’ve been a skeleton’s smile. “Ah, maybe it was. I don’t know. It’s not like he told me before he tried to kill me,” they say. “But it wasn’t all of my comrades— just one. Maybe he was just jealous of me,” they laugh. “Or maybe it was something I’d done, like you said. Who knows? Whatever it was, it’s long past.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Why should it?” Kippoushi tilts their head back, letting flames and smoke alike flutter past their eyes towards the passing clouds. “Like I said, it’s in the past. The man who betrayed me is long dead. Maybe his descendants, too. There’s no use holding a grudge when there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“You sound like you’ve thought your whole life through,” Okita scoffs. “But I guess you’d have nothing better to do after a few hundred years.”

“No, you really don’t,” Kippoushi says. “But I’ve got some questions for you, too.”

Okita doesn’t respond at first, working through her final series of swings. Maybe it’s the focus, maybe it’s because she wants to keep Kippoushi waiting, grasping at the parts of her life she can still say she’s got control over. When she’s done, she says: “I see. You think because you played along with me, I’ll answer whatever you throw at me.”

“It’s only fair.” Kippoushi shrugs again, folding their arms over their chest. Somehow, their coat and shirt makes the gesture look somewhat imposing, even for a skeleton like them.

“Appealing to my honor, huh?” Okita plants her feet and brings her sword up, sheathing it with a single motion. “Alright. Fine, I’ll bite. What is it?”

“Why do you live life the way you do?” Kippoushi says. “I mean, not as a samurai, that’s obvious. More— when you fight, it’s like you become an entirely different person, or something else entirely. Even when we were just sparring, it was obvious you were fighting with the intent to kill. Good thing I’m already kinda dead like this, right?” they snicker. “Ah, what I’m trying to say is, why do that? Say you like fighting, but throw away everything you are when you do?”

Okita shakes her head, her expression wavering between amusement and frustration. Of course Kippoushi wouldn’t understand. She simply says: “It’s because that’s how I’ve chosen to be. Do I need a better reason than that?”

“I guess not,” Kippoushi says. “But it’s something you should consider. Even if you’re a samurai, you won’t spend all of your life fighting. Wars don’t last forever, and maybe you’ll get tired of fighting someday.”

“I won’t need to.” Okita shuffles her sandals in the gravel, listening to its crunch. There’s something heavy on her tongue, words reminiscent of the taste of blood. Something she’s never spoken to anyone, much less acknowledged to herself, hangs heavy around her shoulders. She could swallow what she’s about to say back, and never think of it again. She could, but she’d be a coward, and the last thing she needs is to give Kippoushi anything more to poke at her with.

She says: “I don’t have to. I’m going to die.”

“Um. Yeah,” Kippoushi agrees, their tone uncertain. “All of us are going to, someday.”

“I’m not coughing up blood because of any injury,” she continues. “I’m sick. Something in my lungs. It’s going to kill me, and I don’t know when. Why would I bother worrying about a future I’ll never see? Surely someone like you could understand that.”

That’s it— that’s all there is to be said, or so Okita thinks. It’s out in the open, spoken and sinking into her reality like blood into her palm. There isn’t anything for Kippoushi to say, because how would you respond to something such as that?

She’s wrong. Okita’s stride stutters to a halt at the sound of Kippoushi’s voice, cracking not from any raspiness or flame but from what could nearly pass as mourning.

“Is that so,” Kippoushi says. “So that’s it. You’d rather spend the rest of your life fighting and trying to die honorably rather than accomplishing something.”

Okita’s sandals carve a crescent in the gravel. Her hand is to her sword before Kippoushi’s first sentence is clear of their mouth; its tip is to their neck by the time they’re done. “Choose your next words carefully,” she hisses, both hands white-knuckled around the grip.

“Ah,” Kippoushi says. The flames around their eyes have dwindled: that’s something Okita’s never seen from them before. She likes to believe that it’s fear she’s seeing; more likely, it’s something even more detestable, like pity. “There it is. That other part of you— the cold part, I’d say. It really is a shame. You have such a gentle soul.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?” Okita twists the blade of her sword up, angling it towards Kippoushi’s chin. “What were you saying before? Go on.”

“I was simply saying— you treat your life carelessly, that’s what it feels like.” Kippoushi reaches up, winding their fingers around Okita’s katana. Okita jabs it forward, the edge of the blade digging into the crease between their knuckles. Somehow, Kippoushi doesn’t seem bothered at all. “Throwing it away for something that doesn’t exist in the way you think it does anymore.”

“And where’s this coming from?” Okita jerks her blade again, an up and down against what would be the hollow of Kippoushi’s throat. “Something you learned the hard way?”

“Someone I knew. A gentle person, like you. Just unfit to live in the time he was born in. Really, he didn’t last long,” they say. “Probably for the best.”

“Well, I’m not him.” Okita lets her katana hover by Kippoushi’s neck for a moment longer. It’s tempting, the urge to push forward just a little more. She knows it would be useless: she’d seen what would have been a fatal gash healed over by flecks of ash and fire. But it’d be something.

“That’s obvious,” replies Kippoushi. “You’ve spilled far more blood than he ever could stomach.”

“Then don’t bother comparing me to him.” Another rattle of her katana gets Kippoushi’s hand loose from it, drifting back down to their side. Okita yanks her sword back, slamming the metal guard hard against the scabbard. The hollow ringing echoes in her ears as she turns away, saying, “I bet whoever it is you knew wasn’t sick like I am, either.”

For once, Kippoushi has no instantaneous reply. They only speak when Okita’s halfway across the courtyard, heading back towards the castle: “Okita,” they call to her. “What I’m telling you is— maybe that’s how you’ve chosen to live your life. I can’t be the judge of that. But here, that doesn’t have to matter. Nothing from the outside touches this place, and the reverse is true, too. You shouldn’t worry so much about what’s going on, because none of it matters here. If all you want to do is return to your world, then that’s fine. But if you want to change your mind, maybe try something else, no one’s gonna know besides me and you. Just something else to think about, if you ever get tired of thinking only about fighting.”

Okita doesn’t hesitate even when Kippoushi speaks. She only stops once she’s clear of the courtyard, back up on the walkway, at the base of the stairs. Glancing backwards, she catches looking back at her in the lengthening afternoon shadows, the flames in their eyes shrunken into pinpricks, their only movement the steady flow of smoke from their skull. “I don’t need to think about anything else,” she says, and lets that be the final word. Her legs carry her up the staircase with the steady rhythm of the Shinsengumi’s marching beat. The rest of the castle around her is silent, almost resonating with it. Kippoushi was wrong: parts of the outer world can touch this place. Okita herself is proof of it, ascending the stairs with the same sincerity emblazoned on the Shinsengumi’s flag, as solemn and sure of herself as if she’s bearing that flag's weight up the stairs with her.

* * *

Okita stands frozen, sword clutched tightly in her grasp. It’s in part from the chill in the air, a frigidness that catches up to her whenever Okita goes still. The rest is all Okita, straining in the quiet to hear that sound again, one eerily familiar and yet entirely out of place.

She’s not mistaken. That was gunfire she’d heard before, and now again, echoing from some distant point and cresting over the castle rooftops. Okita lowers her katana, though she keeps it tight against her side. It doesn’t sound at all like it’s coming from a large force, but she can’t be sure. But then, what would they be shooting at? Kippoushi doesn’t go out into the woods, not that Okita’s seen.

But what she’s sure of: in this age, she knows who’d be more likely to be coming towards Kyoto with guns. Sword firm in hand, Okita turns and heads for the first time through the castle gates, out into the twisted wood.

On the ground, the sunlight hardly penetrates through the tangle of branches crossing in the canopy. Here the forest is completely overgrown, dry brush obscuring Kippoushi’s castle from sight like claws reaching to gouge the sky. There’s at least plenty of space between the trunks for Okita to weave through, following the now regular report of what sounds like rifle fire.

There shouldn’t be anyone else out here, Okita thinks. She hadn’t seen anyone out on the road; Kippoushi hadn’t mentioned another person wandering into the barrier. That would mean this sound is coming from someone else who’s found their way in, and that Kippoushi might’ve been wrong— or else that they haven’t been entirely truthful with her, another possibility.

Her ears attuned to the constant popping, Okita continues on beneath the shadows of the trees. To her back, Kippoushi’s castle continues to peer between the treetops, her only other landmark. The sun is no help; it stays motionless overhead, bearing down with relentless brightness on everything below.

Up ahead, there’s a flash of color between the trees. Okita darts behind the nearest trunk, pressing her back against it. The sharp snap of gunfire lances through the clearing up ahead, its echo arcing up to join the sunlight haze lingering near the uppermost branches.

Carefully, Okita peers out from behind her cover. Her shoulders slump, and her katana finds its scabbard: it’s just Kippoushi out there, given away by their telltale whipping flames. Of course it’d be Kippoushi. She’d thought for some reason that they’d keep mostly to the castle, but this shouldn’t surprise her: she could hardly expect anyone to stay in the same building for hundreds of years.

Kippoushi flips something between their fingers, oddly deft for a skeleton. A flash of wood vanishes beneath their rifle as they lift it to their shoulder, sighting down the barrel. They’re aiming, as they’ve been doing, across the clearing. A trio of trees at the opposite end have been Kippoushi’s targets, large craters of wood torn loose by the impact of tens of bullets. She sees them go still, their flames dying as if for a lack of air, and then— that sound she’s been chasing. The scent of gunpowder floods the clearing, but not the distinct scent of burning match. Kippoushi shrugs their rifle from their shoulder, balancing it over their knee, patting out what embers remain in the flash pan before reaching into their coat.

Their fire, Okita thinks, that’s what they’re using for ignition. But that doesn’t explain the second blur of color in the clearing, a pillar of fire just taller than Kippoushi at their full height, vacillating in the breeze and with the minute movements of Kippoushi’s jaw. They’re speaking— Okita’s sure of it, but the wind is against her, carrying their words away from her. She can’t tell if it’s that pillar of flame that Kippoushi’s talking to, or themselves, and there’s another mystery— what would Kippoushi have to say to such a thing, why bother exerting themselves with manifesting it at all?

Kippoushi squeezes something in their hand, a puff of black powder descending onto their hand. They dismiss the violent blaze that rises from it, merely priming their rifle and turning it onto its butt to fill the barrel with more powder and another bullet, produced from the opposite side of their coat. Their movements, though jerky, remind Okita of her own: years of practice refined into a set of fluid motions, albeit Kippoushi’s have faded with time. They fumble with the paper between their fingers to crumble it; their fingers scrape short of the scouring stick before they get ahold of it. They move with the precision of a different body. From the shaking of their head, their constant murmurs, they seem to realize it, too.

Kippoushi brings their rifle level, raises it, fires the moment it touches their shoulder. Okita blinks past the blinding muzzle flash and squints at the trees: the center one, the one that’s been shot the most, sports a new wound in its trunk. A crater, almost perfectly overlapping another, smoulders lightly in the winter air.

The rifle returns to Kippoushi’s knee. Another paper cartridge, another bullet. Their hand jerks momentarily towards their skull, an instinct overridden by another, and they lose their grip. The cartridge, unopened, tumbles to the forest floor. Kippoushi chases after it, leaning over to take it into their fist, and becomes likewise motionless.

Lifelessness becomes the rule of the forest. It could be a painting, a wood-block carving. A burning skeleton, a youkai, reaching for something. A woman peering out from behind a tree, watching. In that painting, Okita would be seen. She is: the slightest incline of Kippoushi’s head points their eye sockets towards her, twin flames flaring with unknowable emotion. If this were a play— Okita was never one for art; that was Hijikata’s vice, those romantic tales— they’d be realizing now that Okita’s been watching, and they couldn’t know for how long.

Okita knows how these stories go. The youkai gets enraged; they chase down the one who found them. Okita’s eyes go towards her sword, but no more. The same thing that holds Kippoushi still has frozen her as well. She could draw her sword, and then what? It would be a race of who was faster, Okita and her sword or Kippoushi and their matchlock. And even then— she’s already tried, and learned that Kippoushi can’t be killed.

The pillar of fire dwindles, disperses, winks out of existence like a candle yielding its last breath. Without looking away, Kippoushi closes their fingers around the paper cartridge. They clench it in their hand; fire puffs from it, and they wait. The strength of the flames in their eye sockets never wavers. Their focus remains on Okita.

Evenly, unhurriedly, Okita steps out fully from behind the tree. She keeps her eyes locked on Kippoushi and the gun in their hand. It’s an old model, the shine of its wood and iron alike long since rubbed away, the metal laced through with occasional streaks of ruddy red not unlike blood. Though curious, it tells Okita nothing she doesn’t already know.

Kippoushi’s jaw opens, the fire by their mouth flickering in an unfelt wind. Okita turns then, a smooth pivot on the heels of her feet, and heads back towards the castle. Whatever Kippoushi might have wanted to say goes unspoken. They don’t pursue her; the only sound in the forest around Okita is that of her own sandals treading on dried leaves and fallen twigs. Had she lingered, had she thought to listen more intently, she would’ve heard the rush of ignition. By the time she reaches the castle, any sign of that is gone: there’s only the forest, obscuring the meandering wisp of white cloud rising from below the trees into the sky in a now-unbroken line.

* * *

Having spent so long in this other world, Okita could be forgiven for hoping that she’d left her sickness behind in the world she’d come from. She had almost believed that what had plagued her when she’d arrived was nothing more than its traces leaving her.

But it was simply a dream. She’s jerked from it into reality in the night, blood flowing past her lips to cover her hands, its taste thick in her throat and on her tongue. She needs a rag— something to wipe it off— the closet. The only part of herself she can move towards it is her eyes: the rest of her is too heavy. The force of her coughing pushes her down into the futon. Blood spurts from between her fingers and down the backs of her hands. It’s her worst attack yet. Kippoushi— where are they? Would they be asleep at this hour? Does a skeleton even need sleep?

Okita manages to roll onto her side, coughing harder. Fresh red splatters on the floor. Her hands smear it into the wooden grain, and add more. If she could just pull herself upright— if she could only find the strength in her to move—

It’s the first time Okita finds herself glad to be in this place, away from the Shinsengumi. Had this happened in Kyoto, in their base, Okita’s room would’ve been filled by Hijikata and Kondo at least, and probably more, curious onlookers crowding in the hall and wondering if this might be the end for Okita Souji.

Well, she’s going to die at one point or another. Falling into this forest has traded one reckoning for another, illness for rest and all the questions that she’ll have to bear once she returns. And speaking of onlookers— where’s Kippoushi? They’ve been oddly attentive to whatever sound comes from Okita’s room, be it her calling for them or even the clumsy clattering of Okita tripping over her borrowed teapot. Tonight, the halls remain devoid of their footsteps. Could Kippoushi be asleep? Did cursed skeletons even need to sleep?

A lengthy pause between bouts of coughing lets Okita catch her breath. For a while, she can do nothing more than lay on the floor, gasping for air like a fish that’s gotten stuck on a rock in the river, just enough water flowing over its gills to keep it breathing. Strength returns to her limbs, surety to her chest. Just a single incident, she hopes. Just that bout of coughing, hopefully not the portent of more and worse yet to come.

Laying there, Okita feels something intangible brush up against her ears. In the absence of her coughing, another sound has crept in. Hardly a whisper, it takes Okita a moment to attune her hearing to it, and another to realize it for what it is. Once she does, it’s unmistakable. Having lived her life in the crowded city of Edo and walked the tight quarters of Kyoto, Okita knows intimately the sound of fire snapping through timber.

Somehow, she makes it to the door. Okita nudges it aside with half-numb fingers, peering out into the hall. No curl of flame makes itself known to her, though the floor glows with a steady orange, lacquered wood reflecting the light radiating from the stairs to the upper floor. That would explain where Kippoushi’s gone.

Okita’s fingers tremble on the doorway. Her legs shake under her, struggling to sustain her weight. At the threshold of her room, she hesitates, eyes going to her sword. Suddenly, with all the swiftness of her usual self, Okita hobbles to the corner and grabs her katana. Even at a time like this, there’s just some things that can’t be left behind.

The fire hasn’t advanced down to her floor yet. It must’ve only just started: maybe that’s what made her cough, the smoke. Okita staggers to the stairwell, hand pressed hard against the wall, letting her arm bear some of her weight down the steps. She’s not going fast enough. Is that the roar of the fire coming closer, or just the sound of her heartbeat rushing vigorously through her veins?

Okita reaches the next floor down and stops, doubling over, unable to continue. Just a moment, she tells herself. Just a handful of seconds to rest. Her throat clenches in protest. She can’t continue for long like this, but she has to. It’s that, or burn.

She keeps going. The question of why never touches her mind. Okita pushes herself down another staircase, and the next. Though there’s no smoke visible in the air over her, the act of breathing itself becomes its own form of pain, the rawness of her throat screaming with every step she pushes herself down. The weight of her katana, once so reassuring, feels like a stone bound around her chest.

Okita doesn’t know at what step she falters. She only registers the give in her legs, the pitiful gasp that leaves her as she tumbles down the rest of the way, no air in her to be knocked loose. Her unresponsive limbs refuse to move, but that’s not a problem: Okita doesn’t even have it in herself to will them forward. She lays there, head ringing and world spinning, unable to string together a coherent thought. All worry of what lurks on the upper floors is gone; the fire consuming her chest is what’s here, now, anchoring her to the floor. It’ll be this that kills her, she thinks. She’s a fool to have ever believed otherwise.

Her unmoving eyes, fixed on the floor from which she’d fallen, peer into the shifting darkness. There’s a light somewhere above her, moving closer, not enough to push back the grey encroaching on her vision. What her death might sound like goes unknown. All Okita can hear is her heartbeat, her stuttering breaths, the creak of the castle around her concentrated beneath her cheek. Before her vision blackens entirely, she thinks she understands what she’s caught a glimpse of: an orange ember glow throwing shadows up on the high walls, advancing indiscriminately through the castle towards Okita, laying prone before its jagged, flame-edged teeth.

* * *

Death is surprisingly warm and comfortable, its weight bearable. It feels remarkably like a futon. Okita groans, the sound light against her ears— are the dead supposed to be able to do that?— and opens her eyes.

The ceiling of the afterlife is remarkably familiar. It is, in fact, the ceiling she’s been looking at for the past two months. Okita groans, extracting her arms from out beneath the covers. Her shifting jostles something from her forehead: a light piece of cloth, folded over twice and still slightly damp. It’s fallen beside something else that wasn’t there before: Okita’s teacup, three-quarters full. She drags her hand over, taps the backs of her fingers against it: cold.

The sky is still dark outside. The night is quiet and unmoving, the treetops completely rigid, not a hint of wind to explain the distant noise lapping at the edge of Okita’s hearing. The same sound as before: were it not for that and the lingering heaviness in Okita’s chest, she might’ve believed the events of earlier to be a dream.

At least she’s strong enough to stand now. Okita peels the covers back and rises carefully, exaggeratedly. Her legs willingly bear her to the doorway. Pushing it open, the same sight as before greets her. The hall is devoid of anyone else, but not quite empty: a sound like rustling leaves suffuses the air, and from that upper floor comes the glow that Okita saw, unchanged.

There’s still no sign of Kippoushi. Whether they’ve retreated into that upper room or left the castle grounds, she can’t tell. Though she’s recovered, Okita knows there isn’t enough strength in her to move around for long, to deal with Kippoushi if they do turn out to be in that upper room.

Later, then. Okita turns back, shutting the door behind her with a light thump. She returns to the futon, smooths its covers, nests herself beneath them. There’ll be a time when Kippoushi leaves the castle again: to wander, to do whatever it is they’d been doing in that clearing before. They’ll be gone, and Okita will be free to climb to the highest floor and see for herself what’s there. Then she’ll know if Kippoushi’s just a fool and left some lantern unhooded, or if they’re a liar like Okita has found herself wondering.

For now, there’s nothing to do but rest. Okita settles herself against her pillow, tugging it flush against her cheek. Fixing her gaze on the window, she thinks of Kondo and Hijikata and home, and if there’d be such a thing as home for her to return to. (And, thankfully, she’s gone before she consider for long that Kyoto might be Kippoushi’s home, too— or rather, that it was.)

* * *

“Okita. Hey, Okita. You gotta get up.”

“Go away, Kippoushi.”

“Kippoushi?” the voice by Okita’s ear chuckles: lower than Kippoushi’s, far more patient. “You finally seeing someone, Okita?”

“Huh?”

Okita sits up, blinking slowly, reality swimming into half-focus. She can’t quite make out the edges and lines on the smiling face in front of her, but she’d know that shade of brown anywhere. “Yamanami?” she mumbles, wiping her palms over her eyes. “What’re you…”

“Kondo wants to see you,” Yamanami tells her. “Hijikata’s up there, too. I think it’s about— well, you know.”

“Oh.” And there’s that sinking feeling in Okita’s stomach to accompany the tension in her chest. Her hands tremble as she winds them in the sheets, shoving them over her knees. “You— do you believe me?”

“Of course I do.” Yamanami kneels at her side, hands balled into fists on his thighs. “I think Kondo and Hijikata do, too, but— you know how they are. How Hijikata gets about things relating to the code…”

“I— ” Okita nods, hardly able to bob her head past the knot in her throat. So this is how it’ll be. Not her illness that kills her after all. “Yamanami? If they make me— ” She digs her teeth into her lower lip, worrying it back and forth. To his credit, Yamanami stays silent and still, waiting for Okita to finish speaking. “Would you do it for me? Be my… would you?”

“I think Kondo would’ve picked me anyway,” Yamanami says. “But yes. Of course I would.”

In that moment, Okita wants nothing more to hug Yamanami: to feel his embrace as a friend, to let the feeling of something other than dread anchor her to reality. But they’re samurai, and part of the burden they’d shouldered in accepting that title is the fortitude with which one must face death. Okita nods again, shallow and slow, and rises. It’s an effort to even get onto her knees; she sees Yamanami reach for her, and waves his hands away. Maybe she’ll finally succumb and have to be carried to her final resting place, but until that time comes, she won’t accept any pity. She’ll face her fate on her own two feet alone.

“Okita,” Yamanami goes to the door and opens it, bowing slightly as Okita advances into the hall. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” she replies. It’s a meaningless exchange. Luck will have nothing to do with what Kondo says, nor any depth of their bond: only honor and the rules the Shinsengumi had sworn themselves to. Mission or not, friendship or not, the punishment for desertion is death. Surely Kondo and Hijikata would believe that Okita hadn’t willingly left, but for the others, who would believe that Okita had been sent to chase youkai tales and locked away in a world only she could speak of? Okita wishes she could at least find some consolation in Kondo’s eyes as he no doubt condemns her, but there won’t be even that relief. Regret is not something a samurai should know intimately. He’ll say he’s sorry, if at all; neither he nor Hijikata could be the one to swing the blade, so they’ll give that to Okita’s other close companion, Yamanami.

Okita staggers to the foot of the stairs, ignoring the wispy blurs of blue haori around her. They’d taken hers when she’d returned, and Okita doesn’t begrudge them for it. She understands. She understands all of this well, and yet that doesn’t make it any easier to look up the stairs, to know what awaits at the end of that climb and that hall.

Yamanami’s eyes are upon her back. He’s the only one who bothers looking at her anymore. Hijikata and Kondo have distanced themselves from her. Without her command, she’s just another prisoner of the Shinsengumi, albeit one who has a sickbed and a friend and enough trust in her not to run.

Okita couldn’t run even if she’d wanted to. She barely has enough strength in her left to raise her sword, and she’ll need all of it.

Turning her face upward, Okita begins her ascent. She doesn’t think to ask herself whether it’s the stairs that are trembling so violently beneath her feet; that’s the only option, the only real explanation. What she does stop for is the growing light that awaits her, a sickly orange glow intensifying with every step Okita takes.

She could still turn back. She could go back down the stairs, back to Yamanami, to her end upon his blade. She could keep going and face the fire, an impersonal death that both commoners and samurai alike have been taken by.

Or she could wait, and let whichever comes for her first be what ends her life.

Kneeling on the steps, Okita closes her eyes and wonders what she’ll feel: the cold bite of Yamanami’s katana against the nape of her neck, or the hot lashes of the approaching fire.

She’ll never know.

The mercy of sleep washes over Okita’s dream in waves of darkness.

When she wakes, she’ll remember none of it: only faint reminders of iron and fire, what might be remnant memories of Ikedaya, or something else entirely.

* * *

The sound of gunfire rings out over the forest. Okita is still in her futon, having feigned sleep when Kippoushi poked their head in earlier. They’ve been doing that lately, checking in on her in the mornings, but they haven’t questioned why she hasn’t gone out. Most likely, they must think she’s still recovering.

Kippoushi’s found a steady rhythm. Okita can imagine them: kneeling on the ground now lightly dusted with frost, shattering icicles with their shots. With the concentration required to keep such a pace, they won’t be returning any time soon. Okita would know how easy it is to lose oneself in their training, finding comfort in those same basic motions, slipping away into the recesses of one’s own mind, away from the world.

Okita gets to her feet, gathers her sword. She doesn’t think she’ll need it, but it’ll be a dry summer in Kyoto before she neglects to bring it with her. Her sandals click against the groaning floorboards, advancing steadily towards the only staircase she hasn’t yet traversed.

It is, to all appearances, just another normal staircase. Okita knows well what she’d seen that night some weeks ago. She’s heard it since, too, on some nights: the crackle of fire too loud to be any mere light, but still smokeless, contained.

Okita’s eyes sweep the staircase. No twine, no wires— either Kippoushi is more crafty than Okita’s thought them to be, or they’re truly a fool to believe that a simple warning would be enough to keep Okita from the upper floor. A few measured steps up the stairs proves the latter to be true. She’s up the rest of the staircase and to the top in a few breaths, standing in what’s little more than a landing with two blank walls and a shoji-paper door stained black with accumulated soot.

Okita winds her fingers into a gap between the door and the frame, widening it just enough to slip through. She finds herself in a darkened room: the slatted blinds lay flat, the few sunbeams peeking through cracks in the wood bathing the room in dust mote laden-light. The faint illumination lays what appears to be a coat of silver over the clutter in the room: just more dust. Okita brushes her fingers over the nearest thing, a lacquered box no larger than the size of her hand. They come away bathed in grey, her touch having hardly disturbed the box’s aged surface.

The rest of the room is in a similar state: objects thrown haphazardly everywhere. Only Kippoushi’s futon, laid out beneath the windows, is in any state that could resemble the furthest reaches of neatness. The twisted blankets are devoid of dust, and that’s all that can be said: they’re just as dirty, covered in a layer of what might be ash, and Okita’s left wondering for the briefest moment if skeletons undress before they go to sleep.

Okita continues forward, wading through the debris. A tarnished pair of knee guards: black at the center and rimmed in decorative metal, what might’ve been brass or something else gilded in flaking gold. An equally worn chain, attached to a clasp with a familiar symbol engraved on it. That’s Kippoushi’s symbol, a five-petaled flower. Okita wonders if she should know it, but it’s nothing more than a passing feeling. Plenty of old clans’ symbols have faded with their bloodlines; even more have been passed or taken by the nearest successor, worthy or not.

Glimpses of aged color leap out at Okita from the dimness. A cord, now a feeble ghost of its former self, more fit to be described with the colors of a stormy sky than whatever it had been before. Pieces of iron armor, so black that Okita can’t tell if that was its original color, or if whatever fire that ate at its now indistinct and sagging edges had scorched it as well. More gilded tassels, connected to a cracked leather sword belt. Kippoushi must’ve heralded from a coastal clan, Okita thinks; that’d explain all the gold.

All this, but no sign of fire. Strange— maybe it had been Kippoushi that Okita was hearing. But then, their fire doesn’t make any sound when Okita is around them. Okita’s eyes fall upon a recess in the floor, a hearth for making tea. It’s in the corner furthest from the door, at the foot of Kippoushi’s futon. No, that wouldn’t explain the sound, either— but there’s a gleaming there, something bright and free of dust, catching Okita’s eye and luring her in as if she were a magpie.

It’s a bowl; it’s more than that. Now, everything makes sense. The five-petaled flower, the black powder, the matchlock rifle. What tentative thoughts Okita might’ve had are confirmed by the glittering vessel in front of her, a shallow bowl nestled in the leveled top of a gilded skull: a gruesome trophy for an equally monstrous warlord.

Standing motionless in the shadows of Oda Nobunaga’s legacy, Okita comes to a second, equally unsettling realization. The forest has been absolutely quiet. She can’t remember the last time she’d heard gunfire. It’s time to leave, but Okita’s legs refuse to respond. Her chest clenches; her vision swims, both from the pain and the haze of heat masking the room like smoke. The sound of boots thundering up the stairs is lost to the thump of Okita’s knees hitting the floor, followed a moment later by her hands. For once, her throat is filled not by blood, but with dread. A member of the Shinsengumi shouldn’t feel fear, much less a captain, but this— knowing who’s sealed in this barrier with her, who’s been lurking so close to Kyoto— that would stagger even Hijikata.

There’s nowhere to go. There’s not even a place for Okita to hide. And there’s no time: Nobunaga storms up the final stairs, throwing the door with a sweep of their arm, both cape and fire billowing around them in an angry nimbus. No longer are they a skeleton, not entirely. Wild hair solidifies out of smoke, reddened skin writhes besides hungry flames with equal fury. Nobunaga’s eyes lock on to Okita’s, glaring beads of crimson no less intense than the inferno surrounding them, the exact hue of freshly spilled blood in firelight.

Okita knows she should look away. This is something that she shouldn’t be seeing, but she can’t tear her eyes from Nobunaga’s. She’s already seen the room, what more would this be? She takes in Nobunaga’s heavy stagger, the way their mouth distorts into a grimace, one materialized arm clawing at one skeletal one, flames shooting out wherever they haven’t yet turned fully human. It’s not what Okita expected, simultaneously less and more. There is no blackened blood that follows in the wake of fire, but Nobunaga twists as though, for once, they can feel their own heat. There’s something to be said here, something witty about karma and fate and consequences, but Okita can’t think it. Nobunaga is advancing on her, grasping at her with that blood-red bone arm, anger clear in the parts of their face that can be read.

“Get. Out,” Nobunaga snarls.

Okita opens her mouth to speak, to protest. She finds no air to take in a breath. There’s only fire. It licks at everything: Nobunaga, the walls, the artifacts strewn around. Only Okita escapes its touch, and even that won’t last long. One way or another, Nobunaga won’t be repeating themselves.

Somehow, Okita finds it in her to stand. It might be terror that drives her, or not. She doesn’t think of it. She can’t. It doesn’t occur to her as she shambles out of Nobunaga’s room, Nobunaga close on her heels and slamming the door shut behind her.

In this sunless upper landing, Okita finds herself thrown back into the grasp of an earlier night, the crackle of fire harsh against her ears, the upper floor alight with this same orange glow. A violent crash sends Okita scrambling down the stairs, to the illusion of safety. Nobunaga won’t pursue her, Okita tells herself, less a thought than a hope. Nothing feels certain anymore, not even the warmth of Okita’s sword in her hand, that she hadn’t even thought to draw.

And then, an all-encompassing sound. It seems impossible that Kyoto itself wouldn’t hear it. It shakes the walls and sends Okita back to her room to huddle behind closed doors and mere blankets, a roar like ignited gunpowder and collapsing timber all at once. Whether it’s rage or pain, Okita would only be able to guess, if she even wanted to speculate at all. She sits in the shelter of her futon, katana close against her quivering chest, listening to Nobunaga’s voice resonate and echo and fade, swallowed up by the forest like everything else.

Okita doesn’t know how long that sound plagues her ears, or when in the following silence she’d decided it was safe to venture a glance from beneath the blankets. What she knows is Nobunaga’s retreat from the upper room and back downstairs— into the courtyard or the forest, as long as it’s away from here.

No sharp gunfire breaks the quiet, nor anything as dramatic. All Okita hears is the whispering wind carrying a second sound upon its back, one she can recognize. The gentle rolling of flame calls up to her from some point below. Okita raises herself up onto unsteady knees and shuffles to the window, peering through the narrow slats down into the treeline.

Nobunaga, too distant to be made out clearly, stands at the edge of the forest. Restored to fullness, they stare out into the trees, unkempt hair whirling like snowfall around them, hands now capable of feeling shoved into the pockets of their coat. They could be looking out at the barrier, at the slowly descending sun, if not for one thing. The pillar of fire from before stands in front of them again, swirling slowly in a formless cluster of embers and flame, looking as though it could be a mirror image of Nobunaga’s soul as much as something to lose themselves in, their matchlock ignition to the calming cool hilt of Okita’s sword.


	3. Chapter 3

The second-floor staircase, looking down the last flight of steps. Okita bounces on the balls of her feet, hovering at the edge of familiarity. Even with the snow-dusted courtyard in sight, it could be easy for her to imagine she’s walking down to the Shinsengumi’s main hall for breakfast the day after a fight. The tension in the air is right. If she goes down, she might find Hijikata sitting in the opposite corner of the room from Yamanami, eating twice as much takuan as usual. She might find Kondo loitering by the door, as he tends to do, waiting to ask Okita to smooth things out between the two.

If only that were possible. If only the echo of firearms in the air and the lingering dregs of unease tangled in her chest were just the dying embers of last night’s inferno, itself a dream.

Okita tugs her kimono tighter around her, katana brushing up against her thigh. What she’s about to do is something that can’t be put off.It must be done; it must be now, or else the hazy memories of the night before will slip away and be swallowed up as just another story woven through this transient forest.

One foot in front of the other. That’s always how Okita’s approached things, everything from assignments to her own bladework. Why should this time be any different? Okita advances through the forest, a hand balanced on the hilt of her katana: to keep it from interfering with her stride, she tells herself. This time, she doesn’t bother to quiet her footsteps. Under these circumstances, it’s better to be heard approaching than not.

Okita finds Nobunaga in the same clearing as before, surrounded by pockmarked trees and the halo of echoing gunshots. Whatever change had seized them last night has long since faded: their reddened bones gleam vividly between the trees, more distinct than any muzzle flash.They lower their rifle as Okita emerges from the treeline, a few trails of smoke dissipating over a patch of ground left seemingly untouched by the snow.

“Come to face me, have you?” they say, propping their rifle over their shoulder.

“Putting it like that?” asks Okita. She comes to a sharp stop a few arms-lengths away from Nobunaga, one foot slightly before the other. This is the absolute edge of her range, the furthest she can be from Nobunaga while still being near enough to strike before they have a chance to fire at her. “Don’t flatter yourself, Oda Nobunaga.”

“Are you going to call me that, now?”

“That’s who you are,” Okita says. “Isn’t it? You’re the only one who’d ever have a cup like that.”

“Well, I guess you’ve figured it out.” Nobunaga doesn’t seem surprised, hardly even amused. Their spare hand darts into their pocket, not to draw any cartridge, but simply out of habit. If they notices the tremor of Okita’s fingers against her sword’s pommel, their flames do not betray it. “Yeah, no use hiding it anymore. I’m Nobunaga. Surprised?”

“If you’re Nobunaga…” Okita waves a hand at them, a slow descent from head to toe. “Why do you look like that?”

“Part of the deal I made,” Nobunaga says. “When I was sealed away in here, I was told I could return when I was no longer thought of as just the Demon King. Funny,” they laugh, rapping their knuckles against their rifle with a sharp tap. “The deal didn’t mention anything about me looking the part, but I wasn’t in any condition to debate the little things when I took it, was I.”

“Then what was last night?” demands Okita. “When you— I saw you. You looked…” Okita trails off, the fingers of her empty hand curling into a fist. Though she won’t show it, the image of Nobunaga bursting through the door hasn’t left her mind since she’d woken up. It’s clear, engraved into her thoughts, the sight of a half-burned body storming towards her, a cold and relentless stare in their purely human eyes.

“Human?” Nobunaga chuckles again, and though Okita knows it’s impossible, she swears their skeleton grin widens even further. “That was all you. I guess you must’ve liked what you saw in there, if you could go so far as to think of me as human.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Okita shoots back. “Until I saw your stupid cup. If I’d known who you were from the start, I wouldn’t have made that mistake.”

“Mistake, huh?” Nobunaga turns away, tilting their chin towards the treetops. “Speaking of mistakes, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Am I a man in your history?”

“What?” The question is so odd that Okita catches herself nearly stepping forward, as if to make out something she’s certain she’s misheard. “What kind of a question is that?”

“Last night, when you gave me a different form, you managed to pick the style I ditched when I took on the name Nobunaga. Really,” they say, tilting their head from side to side. “Is it because I told you my name was Kippoushi?”

“What are you saying?” This time, the step that Okita takes is intentional. The crunch of snow beneath her sandals draws Nobunaga’s gaze to her, to the hand hovering slowly towards her katana. “Give me a straight answer!”

“I wouldn’t have expected a woman to be a samurai in either my time or yours,” Nobunaga tells her. “But you’re here, so really— how hard could it be to think I could’ve been any different?”

Nobunaga turns to face her, head inclined and eye socket flames dancing with what could be barely suppressed laughter. A surge of heat lances through Okita, from her cheeks to the depths of her gut, anger and embarrassment entwined in a single spark. Okita’s sword leaps from its sheath, held out at Nobunaga, its tip wavering as Okita takes up a ready stance.

“Enough distractions!” Okita snaps, beginning to circle around her. “You’ve got to be planning something, if you’ve been waiting here for so long. What are your intentions? Have you been working with the rebels in Kyoto?”

“Rebels?” Nobunaga’s jaw opens; her laughter, no longer restrained, echoes in the vacant space once filled by their gunfire. “Intentions? You expect too much of me. I told you, I’m stuck here. You’re the first person who’s wandered in here that’s spoken to me, ever. Do you really think there’s any way I could be interfering with your world?”

“I don’t know,” Okita says. “You lied to me about who you were. Who’s to say that you weren’t lying about other things, too?”

“Well, I can’t really convince you to believe me or not.” Nobunaga shrugs, and with the lifting of her shoulders comes the rapid ascent of Okita’s blade, point angled at Nobunaga’s throat and close enough to scrape the bone.

“No, but I can make you tell me. Last night, when you were human, you felt what was happening, didn’t you? If you were made human, do you think you’d bleed? Do you think you’d still be so immortal then?”

Nobunaga’s chest rumbles with laughter, the hem of her cape quaking along with it. “I don’t know!” she says, spreading her arms wide and gesturing at Okita’s sword. “Why don’t you turn me human, and then we’ll both find out?”

Okita narrows her eyes, leveling her sword flat at Nobunaga’s throat. Images of the night before drift through her mind’s eye: the tarnished metal, the layers upon layers of belongings that speak as much of Nobunaga’s legacy as they do of the life Nobunaga had lived. But these are nothing; the distinctive image of that golden skull cup keeps rising to the fore of it all, and with it the rest of what Okita’s been told. Oda Nobunaga was the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, murdering those who opposed him with fire, slaughtering his way through the old families of Japan until Akechi Mitsuhide had put a stop to it all at Honnouji.

The skeleton before Okita waits, patiently, fingers still tapping away at the butt of her rifle. One long minute lapses into several. The crease of Okita’s brow, knit tightly in concentration, begins to fade. Even thinking of how Nobunaga had appeared the night before is no help. All Okita can think of is the fire that had come with them, as wrathful as the stories. With each new and passing moment, Okita feels her confidence dwindling, her sword growing heavier in her hands.

When Nobunaga speaks, it’s not the triumphant crowing that Okita expected, nor anything profound and loud. It’s a simple, muted observation: “Is that so.” The hand in her pocket emerges to swat Okita’s blade away, and she’s moving past her: not towards the castle, but deeper into the forest, as if she means to run, to lose herself and Okita in its depths.

“What’re you going to do now?” It’s a good thing Nobunaga’s back is to Okita: she can’t see the stung expression that failure leaves upon her face, the way she cradles her sword in her palms as if it can mend her wounded pride. “I know how you are. If you let me go, I’ll go back and tell everyone who’s here. Unkillable or not, they’ll find some way to stop you. Maybe they’ll fill you full of that black powder you like and blow you to bits, how about that?”

“They can try,” Nobunaga says mildly, dismissing Okita’s shouts with a flick of her fingers. “But don’t you think, given how long I’ve been here, I haven’t already had something like that happen to me?”

“If you’re not that concerned about it, why hide your identity at all?”

So intent on chasing down Nobunaga, Okita doesn’t see the lines of fire making their way towards her. It’s only when they spring to life, only a narrow gap between them allowing Nobunaga to pass, that Okita realizes that they’re there: stretching as far as she can see in either direction, a wall of flame uninterrupted save for in this one spot.

Nobunaga turns to face her, head canted slightly to the side, the flames in her eyes burning as strongly as the ones she’s called. She seems to be studying her, though only for a moment. “Okita,” she says, all hints of amusement gone from her voice. Now, she just seems tired. “Think about it this way— why would you want to let anyone know who you are if all that does is remind you of this?”

Nobunaga lifts a hand, spindly bone fingers waving in the air between them. Okita’s reply, already hot on her lips, just as quickly dies there. The gap closes; tongues of fire lash out in all directions, driving Okita back. By the time the flame calms itself, Nobunaga’s already gone from sight; she’s long lost to the trees by the time the fire line burns itself out into a black smudge against the pristine snowfall.

Okita is left in its aftermath with her dwindling anger and her sword nearly slipping from her chilled and shaking hands. She wrestles it back into its scabbard and shoves her palms under her arms, trying to warm herself. As much as she’s loathe to do it, Okita turns and begins to head back towards the castle: at least it’ll be warm, and Nobunaga won’t be there.

The trudge back to the castle passes in a blur of frenzied thought. At the very least, Okita knows they’re telling the truth about the barrier: it exists; it opens in October, and maybe they hadn’t lied about that second day. Though, if there were more openings they hadn’t told Okita about, wouldn’t someone in Hijikata and Kondo’s reports have come through then?

Okita shakes her head, rubbing her palm over her eyes. There’s no use overthinking this. She’s still drained from her fit of sickness a week earlier. She’d thought herself recovered, but the walk and the act of holding her sword on Nobunaga have stripped her regained strength away, and it’s all she can do to make it to the castle gates and up the stairs.

Secured under the blankets in the warmth of her futon, Okita hears the forest resounding with the crack of gunfire again: more distant, this time, and faster. One part of a three-volley cycle, the heartbeat of Nobunaga’s era. The Demon King had left her mark on history with that sound and the fire that sparked it, a ruthless and bloody streak carved with black powder. Okita had seen none of that spirit in the burning skeleton she’d met out in the forest. That had been Nobunaga, in name and fire, and that was all. Nobunaga, she thinks, would never have taken her in. Coming from a time where appearances of strength were everything, Nobunaga would’ve had no reason to bring Okita in out of the snow or nurse her back to health without a reason. But Nobunaga’s done nothing to her, asked nothing of her. Nobunaga seemed content to know Okita was healthy, and then to wander the refuge of the woods.

None of it makes sense. Briefly, Okita wonders if that might be the point— losing sight of the monster amidst the confusion that Nobunaga sows. But that tinge of hurt in Nobunaga’s voice— Okita hadn’t imagined it. She knew that sound, even if only in a different form: she’d heard it in her own laugh on the day after Ikedaya, when the doctors had taken Hijikata and Kondo out into the hall to tell them Okita’s diagnosis; she’d felt it tremble against the hands she’d pressed flush against her bloodied lips.

That hurt was genuine. Nothing, no fire or burning cough, could hope to match it. Okita knows its name, though she’d refused to acknowledge it so long as she still wore the haori, could still stand and command and fight beside her men. Here, in the world untouched by the one Okita had left behind, she can finally lift its weight from her chest, trading one burden for another. It was resignation she’d heard in Nobunaga’s voice, that leaves her wondering if the Demon King had first known it in the ashes of Honnouji, or if, like Okita, the unrelenting passage of time has left her with a keen taste for it.

*** * ***

Powder, scouring rod, bullet, fire. Another chunk of wood scores itself free from a distant tree trunk. Nobunaga drops her rifle to her side and reloads again: she tears the paper cartridges with her mouth, no longer caring what happens or for the spurts of flame that eat up the stray bits of gunpowder.

It hurts, the scrape of flame over her skull, but Nobunaga’s used to it. She’s had time to acclimatize to the constant seethe of fire over her bones. Now it registers as little more than a tickling, little twinges of out of place feeling. Last night had been the one exception, one Nobunaga hadn’t even realized existed. She’s never had anyone turn her human before; she’s never felt her own cursed fire eating away at her like that, sensations clear and crisp as if Honnouji had come through time to chase her.

Bullet, paper, pack down, lift. Nobunaga wheels around, sighting at an invisible target. Another tree yields a piece of itself. Had it been a man, they’d be dead.

So many years of isolation have made Nobunaga careless. She’s never been one afraid to speak her mind, but even that back there had been going too far. A bullet tumbles around in Nobunaga’s fingers, briefly escaping into freefall. Nobunaga’s fist clenches over it, wrangling it back into its proper place.

Nobunaga hadn’t been angry at Okita; she still isn’t. It was only natural that Okita would’ve gone to the upper floor at some point. Nobunaga won’t begrudge her innate curiosity— no, what she feels now is an equally elusive feeling. Frustration— that’s what she’d call it.

Load, turn, sight. Nobunaga’s finger clenches tight over the trigger. She doesn’t bother looking to see where her bullet goes. The rifle is back down over her knee. Some tree in the distance has been shot dead.

They hadn’t been friends in any sense of even the furthest reaches of the word. They’d just been two people trapped in the same place— so why, Nobunaga wonders, does this hurt more than anything she knows, even her own near-death?

She knows why. She just refuses to acknowledge it. Nobunaga brings the rifle up. It kicks hard against her shoulder, and goes back down. Not fast enough.

In spite of herself, Nobunaga can’t help but grin: the slightest parting of her jaws to let the winter air sing crisp notes over her teeth. That searing pain hadn’t been the first thing she’d felt in so many centuries. She’d dared to hope, to think that Okita wasn’t anything like the others who’d been trapped in the barrier with her before. She’d wanted to believe that they could’ve become something remotely resembling friends. Anything more than a relationship defined by the borders of this forest and dancing around each other.

Of course that would be impossible. Nobunaga had realized that from the moment she’d thrown open the door to her room. If even then, knowing full well who she was, Okita couldn’t manage more than half a human body for her, that should’ve told Nobunaga everything she could have ever asked. To those in this time, Oda Nobunaga is nothing more than a monster.

And then there had been today. Nobunaga pulls her rifle up and fires: click. She’d forgotten the gunpowder. She’ll have to remedy that. She’s been caught up in her thoughts, just like she’d let herself be carried along by the moment and her own momentum earlier, talking to Okita. She’d wanted so badly for some reaction, a sign of latent and suppressed humanity, that she hadn’t thought about what she’d said. And then, walking away, she’d felt disappointment— there’s no way to explain that away.

It’s simple: she’d goaded Okita into trying to turn her human and deliver that killing strike, and never once thought of what would happen if she did. She’d never considered what might come of Okita’s response, and that disappointment Nobunaga feels builds and leaps up alongside her fire, gnawing at her very being. She’d been willing to allow Okita to try and end her; by this disappointment, she might have even wanted it.

What does that say about her? Nobunaga’s teeth grind together, sending sparks leaping to their deaths in the snow. Nothing, she thinks. She tells herself it’s not Okita’s failed attempt to kill her that’s lingering in her mind, but her failure to see Nobunaga as anything but the Demon King of legend. If Nobunaga could just believe that her disappointment lies in the fact that she’d failed, that the bond she’d been so bold as to hope for is impossible— but how would that be any better?

Reload, sight, reload, sight. Just like Nagashino. Just like cutting down the Takeda cavalry. Just like when her veins had been filled with racing blood carrying the elated feeling of victory. Nobunaga isn’t one to chase memories like this, but for once, she allows herself to. She lets the past swell in her mind and bleed into the present. She lets her reality become this blur of black powder and fire, sweeping over her and pulling her down just as the river had drowned so many on that day.

* * *

When winter sets in, the sun no longer shines so brightly or so long. Still, Okita finds the cold company of the forest more welcoming than the castle. Whether Nobunaga’s there or not, a different air has settled over it; or else it’s always been there, and Okita had just convinced herself to ignore it for this long. That sense of being boxed in with a dangerous creature, suffusing the barrier since the day Okita was trapped in it, now settles over the castle as thick as the layers of unceasing snow.

Bundled in her kimono, scarf wrapped tight around her chin, Okita whispers through the treelines, bare katana in hand. Her path is a series of dark shadows in the snow, gouges scraped into the frozen frost layer taking hold of the forest floor. This is where she practices now, returning to the castle only to eat and sleep. She’s certain Nobunaga’s out in this forest, too— sometimes, when the wind is with her and the air is stagnant, she can hear the distant sounds of rifle fire— but their paths haven’t crossed since that day Okita went to find her.

That doesn’t stop Okita from going still whenever she hears a noise that’s not her own. The Nobunaga of lore had been relentless. Pretenses of patience wear away quickly, more so for someone as volatile as Nobunaga.

Somewhere nearby, there’s a snapping, like a heavy boot on iced-over deadfall. Okita whirls, blade and scarf flaring around her as she spins. As always, it’s just nothing— ice breaking free from the high boughs, trees giving under the weight of winter. Okita sighs, breath puffing out in a fleeting cloud around her, and sets her feet again. She’d lost her focus; she’ll have to start over.

It’s been like this all day, Okita leaping at every remotely unfamiliar sound. She shouldn’t be so jumpy. Nobunaga couldn’t take her in a fight; if Nobunaga wanted her dead, there’d been ample opportunity for that. But Nobunaga has a rifle, and was said to have been mercurial in life— wasn’t there that story of how she’d treated Mitsuhide leading up to his betrayal? There’s that, and, well, it’s hard for Okita to get a grasp on reading a skeleton. Better to keep her distance from Nobunaga and minimize the chance of anything happening at all.

A tremor and a cough work their way through Okita’s body, disrupting another sequence. Bitterly, she widens her stance and prepare to begin again. Usually, she’d trained indoors. She’s never had to take Kyoto’s winter like this. Another thing to pin on Nobunaga— who probably doesn’t even feel it, Okita notes. The cold has never seemed to slow Nobunaga, but why would it? She’s a skeleton on fire, after all.

In the dwindling light of a snowball-pale sun, Okita doesn’t notice when the clouds start to move in. They come in thick and fast, there as she starts one set of moves and settled when she finishes, sudden darkness flooding the forest.

Too late, Okita realizes she should’ve started back towards the castle long ago. Sheathing her sword with a flourish, she rights herself to face the spindly rooftop peaks of Nobunaga’s castle. A light flurry has already begun to blister against her face, but the worst of the storm won’t come just yet. There’s enough time to make the journey back, if only just.

Stupid, Okita chastises herself. This is the second time she’s let her guard lapse like this: the first had been in Nobunaga’s room. She’s grown so used to the sound of rifle fire that its coming and going fails to register as anything remarkable. It’s all because of Nobunaga, she thinks with a shake of her head. She’s been dwelling too much on Nobunaga, and that’s dulled some of her edge.

(But who wouldn’t? The lord of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the ominous figure uniting Japan under fear of black powder and fire. Would Hijikata and Kondo have been able to take such news with any more temerity?)

Tucking her hands beneath her elbows, Okita presses on. Snow piles up around her as the storm sweeps in: one of the strongest of the season, and a portent of more to come. Kyoto’s had a series of mild winters, and this one seems intent on making up for them.

Heading back to the castle, the backsides of the trees Okita passed by on her way out to her clearing are as unfamiliar to her as the rest of the forest. Too late, she realizes she’s been walking for far too long. By that time, snow obscures the tops of the trees and the distant castle rooftop; there’s only the featureless grey of the clouds and the whipping sleet coming down around her.

No, she won’t panic. She’s been through worse alone— just nothing related to snow. Okita glances behind herself, at her footprints in the drifts, already covered in flecks of freshly fallen white. No, she won’t go back. That’ll just be wasting precious time. She’d started in the right direction; she hasn’t wandered off course. She’s got to be near the castle— maybe she’d wandered just a bit wide.

A turn to the left, another few minutes of slogging through the snow. Now she’s gone too far again. Back the other way: still nothing. The temperature, still dropping, has started to seep into the warm layers of Okita’s clothes. Her legs tremble beneath her hakama. Looking up again, the sky seems impossibly closer, and so much darker.

Another gust of wind, another wall of white. Okita squints through it: she’s totally lost. Even her tracks are lost to her. The world is nothing more than a blank expanse, the storm its own barrier, surrounding Okita in a colorless void. Her mind, scrabbling frantically for any hope of returning to the castle, casts itself upon a feverish thought. This is what Nobunaga must have felt. Locked in an unfamiliar place, no sign of escape— but that isn’t the case; there’s still a chance Okita can find her way back. If only she can find the right direction.

If only she can keep going.

Her sluggish legs refuse to respond. Okita urges herself forward, and topples towards the earth. Her arms barely lift to brace herself against the impact. She crashes against the snow shoulder-first and vanishes into it up to the dip between her neck and her shoulder. The ice shocks her skin, wavering between a mind-numbing heat and cold, but Okita can barely gasp out a cry. Her chest, seizing tight into a knot, can’t even manage the strength to fight the building pressure.

This isn’t how Okita had imagined her death. Even in her darkest dreams, death is a drawn-out affair spent in a futon, Yamanami and Kondo and Hijikata slowly visiting less and less, but never outright abandoning her. Not this slow fade into the whiteness as spots of it begin to gather on her, burying her and concealing her beneath their accumulated weight, pressing Okita into nothingness. There’s nothing in a death like this: no honor, not even the relief from her sickness that Okita, in those passing moments after waking from her dreams, had indulged herself in feeling. There’s just the cold, its silence drowning out even Okita’s heartbeat and her strangled attempts at breathing.

A word is forming on her lips. Okita doesn’t recognize its shape. A whisper of _Oda_ flutters into the wind and is just as quickly torn to shreds that rain back down on Okita’s motionless body. Nothing escapes into the tempest around Okita, an almost solid cascade of wind and ice buffeting her into the earth. Hazily, Okita almost wants to laugh: at least she won’t have to burden someone with the duty of burying her body.

But if she could choose at all, Okita wouldn’t want to go like this. Even the embarrassment of being found like this by Nobunaga would be preferable. Okita squeezes her eyes shut, or else the storm closes them for her. A tremor works its way past her lips: a cough, or what could be another attempt at calling for help. The last warmth left in her body escapes in a trickle of red down the side of her chin and chills against the snow. There’s nowhere left for her to go. There’s not enough snow to try and dig out a shelter; there’s not enough strength left in Okita for her to even lift her hand.

The storm swirls around her, howling with its intensity. So, that’s it. She’ll make her exit from existence here, already removed from it, a quiet and ignominious retreat from the world of the living. There are voices on the wind: Hijikata’s, Kondo’s. They’d have to be. It would be the voices of her friends she’d call up in her mind to escort her to the end. That’s how she’d always imagined it; one of them by her deathbed, or at least beside her when Okita drifts off to her final sleep. She couldn’t imagine any other way to go.

But the voices lack that familiarity. They echo with a franticness that Hijikata would disparage as disgraceful, that Kondo is too lax to ever reach. It’s alright, though. That’s just the fuzziness settling over Okita’s senses distorting their sound. It’s still them. It could only be them. Now that she’s used to the ice, it’s starting to feel warm, almost welcoming. Perhaps this isn’t as bad as she’d thought. She’ll rest here, and wake when the storm has passed. Yes, that’s what’ll happen. There’s no reason for her to be so worried— why had she been worried, again?

The weight over her body feels just like a blanket. Okita’s arm, curled beneath her cheek, could be her pillow. It’s so easy to pretend she’s just resting in her room. Behind the curtain of her eyelids, the wind could just be the storm raging outside the window. Like this, it’s only natural that Okita begins to nod off. And if, for some reason, that sleep is accompanied by the sensation of movement— that’s just the stirring of her chest, nothing more, not something to be concerned about at all.

* * *

Just now, Okita swears she heard someone say her name.

That’s funny: she doesn’t share a room with anyone else.

Wait, why would she think that?

And why is there someone moving about in her room, anyway?

Okita opens her eyes, forcing her drooping eyelids to part. The white blur of the forest is gone. It’s been replaced by a flurry of red and black, moving furiously through the room, frustration distinct in its movements. The sharp clink of iron on fired clay, a rushing like fire in the wind. The blur turns towards her, crawling on all fours up to her bedside.

“Oh, good,” Nobunaga says. “You’re awake. Come on, we’re going up to my room.”

“Wh…” Words are still beyond Okita’s reach. She can barely get her question off her tongue. Her limbs aren’t bound by such a heaviness. She squirms from Nobunaga’s reaching arms, tumbling back onto the futon, rolling to the far side.

“I know you’re stubborn, but can you at least try and cooperate when someone’s trying to help you?” Nobunaga’s flames sputter all at once, matching her indignant huff. “How am I supposed to feel your temperature or taste anything I make for you like this? Now get back here.”

What should be a terrifying sight— a flaming skeleton leaning over her, eye socket flames dwindled into tight-packed embers— is made instantly comical by Nobunaga’s legs tangling in her cape. She plops face first onto the futon, shaking herself off as she gets back up, reaching for Okita’s arm.

Words are still beyond Okita’s reach, but the way she recoils from Nobunaga sends the skeleton reeling back, sitting on the futon with her arms draped over her slacks. “Now what?” Nobunaga says. “Ah, does it hurt if I move you?”

Okita snorts. She’s not that frail (not yet, anyway). Slowly, she rasps, “Why would I want to let you move me?”

“Ah, so it’s that kind of thing, isn’t it?” Nobunaga asks. “You’d be a fool to trust the Demon King, right? Well, if that’s the case— ” Nobunaga inches forward, tucking her arms beneath Okita’s body, lifting her into the air with sudden and surprising ease. “If I’m going to be the Demon King, I need to act the part. I’m taking you prisoner, and you’re coming with me.”

_Prisoner_ , Okita scoffs to herself, what a joke. Prisoners in the Shinsengumi get strung up and handed to Hijikata; what Nobunaga’s doing is just being a pest. Okita shoves at Nobunaga’s shoulders, trying to get her to let go. She doesn’t want Nobunaga to tend to her; having to be plucked from the snow and carried back to the castle was humiliation enough in itself. To let Nobunaga do anything more, to see her at her weakest state, would be a stain upon herself.

“Are you always like this?” Nobunaga asks as she heads towards the stairs. “Not letting people help you— ah, so is that why you were so surprised when I took a look at you that one time?”

“That’s because you were being too brash,” Okita grumbles. She can feel her chest loosening up, shaken by the gentle vibrations of her voice. “And because all the other samurai in my company are men.”

“Well, good thing that’s not a problem here.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you want with me.”

“Look at it this way.” Nobunaga crests the final step and nudges the door to her room aside with her foot. “You’re into that whole thing about samurai honor and decorum, right? I’m obligated to take care of you since you’re my guest. So how about you stop protesting and let me do what I’m supposed to?”

“If you knew anything about tradition, you’d also know I’m supposed to protest a bit,” Okita bites back at her. Still, Nobunaga’s got a point. That’s part of why she allows Nobunaga to lower her onto the futon: the other is just pure exhaustion. She’s only just awoken, and what little strength she’d regained was spent flailing at Nobunaga.

“Alright,” Nobunaga says, kneeling beside her and glancing around the room. “Just do what you did last time to make me human.”

That’s easier said than done. Okita swallows her immediate reply, that she hadn’t really succeeded the last time either, and that it had ended with the room catching fire and Nobunaga with half of a human body. She could refuse to, and let this impasse stand, but to do so would be to disregard Nobunaga’s efforts. Demon King, skeleton, or not, she’s trying to help Okita. It would only be fair for Okita to match that effort with her own.

Nobunaga shuffles to the side, letting Okita’s gaze have free roam of the room. Nothing much has changed from the time before. The golden skull cup is gone, tucked out of sight. There’s a bit more dust, or what Okita now suspects is ash; the golden tassels Okita had spotted before; a suit of old samurai armor that Hijikata would say belongs in a collection more than on any battlefield.

Okita drags her stare across the room, chances a quick glance at Nobunaga. She’s sitting still, flame hardly wavering, spine taut with anticipation. “I can’t,” Okita mumbles with a shake of her head. “I can’t do it.”

“You did it last time,” Nobunaga says.

“I didn’t know who you were last time,” Okita replies, and sees Nobunaga’s spine bow slightly. Strangely, Nobunaga doesn’t comment. Okita can’t tell if she’s truly unbothered by this, or has just thought this scenario through enough times to mask her reaction. Okita worries her lip between her teeth, looking once again over the clutter. Nobunaga only means to help— so Okita will try again. It’s the least she owes to Nobunaga.

Okita pores over the room, taking in each shadowy detail. In the furthest piles, she can make out what might be a jumble of rifles stripped down for parts and tightly-bound scrolls protruding from beneath heaps of assorted items. Still, nothing. Her eyes fall upon the far corner— there’s something there. Round and worn, so simple that it’s no wonder that Okita had missed it. A simple cluster of bamboo bound together, a makeshift guard at its widest part: a shinai, a wooden sparring sword.

Why had it been that she’d stopped sparring with Nobunaga? She’d been sloppier fighting with her, yes, but there had been more. She’d been unnerved. Even before she’d known it was Nobunaga, something about fighting her had felt different, drawn emotions out from Okita that had no place whenever her katana was in her hands.

She’d struck to kill; Okita had thought that was why she’d avoided Nobunaga once she’d learned that Nobunaga couldn’t be killed. That had been the truth, but not all of it. The other part, what she’d refused to recognize, was that she’d _liked_ sparring Nobunaga. Training under Kondo was her duty; masterful swordsmanship was expected from her by the Shinsengumi. With Nobunaga, she could let her blade flow freely, drifting from one form to another in a patternless chaos. Kondo would’ve chided Okita for sloppiness; Nobunaga had only lifted her hands up at the touch of cold iron to her neck and said, _looks like you beat me again!_

There’s movement at the edge of Okita’s vision. Nobunaga’s doubled over, arms pressed to her stomach, teeth clenched and grinding hard against each other. What seizes her is less a shivering than a spasm of her entire being through existence; flesh unfurls itself where there was none before, traveling out from beneath rolled-up sleeves and down Nobunaga’s limbs.

The first thing that Okita notices is the scarring, an incalculably large mass of it. The legend of Honnouji is one thing. Seeing its damage is something else entirely. The injuries of past battles hardly stand out against the uneven, lumpy burn marks. There’s not just sword marks, too, but twisted circles like burns themselves, if not for the round upraised patch of skin at their centers. The story of Nobunaga’s life is one of endless war, but Okita had never imagined it quite like this. No wonder she’d told Okita to consider the value of peace.

“Ahh…” A strangled breath stutters from Nobunaga’s lips. Her eyes squeezed shut, she doesn’t see the way Okita stares at the black hair forming and draping over her shoulders, or carefully studies her face. Okita doesn’t mean to stare, but she just can’t tear her eyes away. This isn’t what she’d expected to see. She doesn’t know if she’d expected anything at all, but certainly not this. Nobunaga is so miniscule, less defined than the other swordsmen Okita knows and even Okita herself. No wonder she’d been so preferential to rifles.

For once, Nobunaga is silent. No rippling flame constantly announces her presence. She breathes a heavy sigh, and that’s it. Her eyes zero in on Okita’s, red and dangerously inviting. Okita wrenches her head to the side, looking away. She doesn’t want to think of the gratitude shining through Nobunaga’s gaze, the odd vulnerability of a face that hasn’t known how to guard an expression in centuries.

“Much better.” Nobunaga presses her hands to her body, patting herself from chest to thighs: thoroughly solid. “Alright,” she says, reaching for the teapot and cup she’d brought up with them. “Give me some time to sort things out, and I’ll have some tea and soup for you.”

“Oda?” Okita says, rolling onto her back. “I think I’d rather sleep for now.”

“Huh? Oh, sure.” Nobunaga sets the pot down and settles next to Okita, reaching over. Her fingertips lightly strum Okita’s forehead, for once as warm as any human’s touch should be. The tremor in Nobunaga’s fingers tells Okita that she’s noticed the change, too. “I’ll make it when you get up, then. Is there anything you need now?”

Okita stays resolutely silent, letting the silence stretch into quiet. In truth, she’s a bit cold. Nobunaga’s futon only has one blanket, there for the pressure it provides more than any significant source of warmth. Okita shifts beneath it, trying to settle into a comfortable position. It’s nothing she can’t bear. Kyoto has had colder nights, and the Shinsengumi have more important things to do than worry about blankets.

“Is that so,” Nobunaga hums.That’s all she says, and nothing more. Through closing eyelids, Okita sees her pull her legs up against her chest. What follows is a muted crackling, filling the air in the absence of Nobunaga’s voice. Okita knows what it is already, and yet her curiosity gets the better of her. Her eyes flick towards Nobunaga, fighting the weightiness of her eyelids for just a moment longer of clarity. What she glimpses are Nobunaga’s upturned hands, balanced on her knees, alight with a gentle glow more at home in a lantern or a hearth. Her light does not touch the darkness beneath Okita’s eyelids. It settles over her instead, and after it comes the comforting nothingness of sleep, descending in its wake like the flurries of snow that continue to fall in the night around them.

* * *

The days that follow are a stormy haze to match the constant blizzards outside. The sky is only freshly cleared by the time that Okita returns to lucidity from a dream where Nobunaga had hardly left her side and tamed firelight had kept her company.

Nobunaga is still here, flesh creeping over exposed bones, Nobunaga setting the teapot in her hands down with a wince and a shaking of her head. “You’re awake, huh?” she says. “You’ve been out around four days. Haven’t missed much, trust me.”

“That long…?” Okita sits up, grunting softly from the effort. In spite of her sleep, she feels no more rested than before. Her body responds stiffly and sluggishly, hardly able to lift a hand to accept Nobunaga’s offered cup of tea. Nobunaga’s hand cradles the back of hers, curling her fingers around the warm ceramic; Okita tries not to think of the touch as anything more than necessary, and certainly not comforting.

(So long spent in isolation has left Okita lacking, and though she would never admit it, there’s always been a certain loneliness that followed her ever since Kondo and Hijikata took leadership of the Shinsengumi.)

Lifting the cup to her lips, Okita turns away from Nobunaga. Her gaze falls upon the forest: draped in pure and freshly fallen white, it seems more at home as a lingering figment of Okita’s dreams than anything real. Beside her, a thumping and a shifting of weight: Nobunaga’s plopped herself down on the futon beside Okita, chugging from her own cup. Okita, about to protest, catches the words before they can fully form in her throat. This is Nobunaga’s futon, after all, and she’s just visiting.

Okita squirms in place, the realization only fueling her growing discomfort. Though she greatly prefers silences to the constant chatter of Nobunaga’s voice, sitting in what could be called an almost companionable quiet is not something she intends to do. Another thing is bothering her, too: fighting the scratchiness in her throat with another sip of tea, she asks, “Was I much of a bother to you?”

“Hm?” Nobunaga glances over. She’s looking at Okita for no more than a brief second, but her eyes— so red, brimming with countless things that Okita couldn’t even begin to decipher— seem to take in all of Okita, down to her unseen illness, her unacknowledged doubts. “You weren’t a bother,” she says. “It’s like I told you before, I’m your host. I’m supposed to help you out. Even if I wasn’t, I’d do it anyway. You’re the most interesting thing there is around here.”

“I’m glad I amuse you,” rasps Okita.

“Ah, don’t misunderstand me! It’s not just because of that.” Nobunaga falls quiet, such a sudden change that Okita finds her eyes drawn in Nobunaga’s direction, catches her mulling over her next words with her lip between her teeth. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, by the way,” she says. Her tone is casual; the slight lift of her shoulders and furrowing of her brows suggests it’s anything but. “What do you intend to do once you get back home to Kyoto?”

“Why does it matter to you?” Okita responds immediately. “Having second thoughts about keeping me alive?”

Nobunaga laughs, the sound somehow fuller and more alive coming from this body than her skeleton form. It echoes off the high rafters and escapes out into the frigid air, its absence leaving Okita wanting inexplicably to hear it again, leaning towards its source as if that might somehow call more of it out.

“Do you really think I’d do such a thing?” Nobunaga asks. “You don’t have to answer; I already know what you’d say. No, I simply wanted to hear what your plans were. It’s best if you think about things outside this forest from time to time, you know.”

“That’s funny, coming from someone who’s stuck in here with no way out.”

“It’s only reasonable,” Nobunaga counters. “Unless you really are this tight-strung all the time. If I spent my entire life thinking only about my curse, I think I’d have gone crazy before the first century was up. You should think about other things, too.”

“What are you talking about?” Okita asks, wrenching her gaze back over the forest. She shouldn’t be surprised that the view is this much better from Nobunaga’s room, but that feeling is steeped in bittersweetness. She wouldn’t be up here if she wasn’t sick; she’d be out in that forest, sword in hand, not sitting beside the most infamous warlord in history. “I’m not the one who’s cursed here.”

“Oh, really?” Suddenly, Nobunaga is far too close. Okita flinches back, toppling onto the futon and feeling Nobunaga knock against her chest a second later. Her eyes squeeze shut; she braces for the fit of coughing to follow, but it doesn’t come. Wrenching one eye open, she sees Nobunaga prod a finger against her sternum and sit back, tucking her legs beneath her, rocking slightly from side to side.

“That’s not a curse. I’m just sick,” Okita says, and hates that she does. _Sick_ implies she shouldn’t be fighting, that Kondo had been right in worrying over her and ordering her to rest before Okita had shouted him down. _Sick_ carries with it the hope of getting better. Okita has long since given up on that hope; out of all the things she’d been told to do, that was the only advice she’d taken. If she drove herself down into the ground before her body gave out, then it couldn’t be said that the sickness was what had taken her, could it?

“Alright,” Nobunaga says. Her tone tells Okita that she’s just humoring her; that’ll have to do. A few months earlier, and Okita would’ve been wrestling Nobunaga to the floor to get her to take that back. Now, she’s left to simply muster a glare that Nobunaga, knowing of things that have burned far hotter, shrugs off. “The principle’s still the same. You can’t think about it all the time, or else it’ll drive you crazy. So, going home?”

“You just aren’t gonna let this drop, are you?”

“Nope!” Nobunaga declares, settling her elbows over her knees.

“If I tell you, will you shut up and leave me alone?”

“It’s a deal,” Nobunaga says. “Besides, we’re almost out of water for the tea.”

“Fine,” Okita sighs. “I’ll go back to my friends and tell them about you. Then I’ll get my next assignment and try and forget about how annoying you were.”

“Assuming your friends are still there.”

“Of course they’ll be there!” Okita tries to sit up, finds herself pushed back by a flat-handed shove. “Stop doing that!”

“How do you know they’ll be there?” asks Nobunaga. “I’m guessing right now you’re in a period of fighting, or in between. If something big kicks up, who’s not to say they’ll move on from Kyoto and go to where it is?”

“Then they’d tell me where they were going,” says Okita. “They’d leave a message. Something in case I came back.”

“Assuming they expect you to come back at all.”

“They will. They’d know I wouldn’t just run off like that. They know I’m better than that!”

Nobunaga smirks, no trace of her earlier joyful amusement present in the hard line of her jaw. “You really think they’d do all that just for a single person who got lost in the woods?” she asks. “For all they know, you got attacked by bandits and buried in some unmarked grave. And who would believe you, hm? Do you really know all of your men so well that not a single one of them would dare think you’d deserted them?”

“I— I don’t have to take this from you!”

“Really?” Nobunaga’s eyes flash with a hint of her fire, almost glowing with the way the sunlight glints off of them. “Why not?”

“You don’t know anything about the outside world, or about me!”

“I know enough.” Nobunaga’s mouth curls down into a frown, the air around her starting to shimmer. “I’ve seen enough of you to know your sword is wasted. You love to fight, but you’re not crazy over it, which means you haven’t seen anything remotely close to real war. You say your group is close enough for you all to be comrades, but if you were, then you wouldn’t be worrying about whether or not they’d take you back like a lost dog. You’re so caught up in all of this that you actually believe your little group can make a difference, and you’re throwing aside everything for it. Everything I’ve heard from your mouth has been about honor and obligations; the only thing you really enjoy is fighting, and even then you’re swinging your sword in the service of someone else. I haven’t heard a single thing about what _you_ want to do, so unless you want to throw away your whole life too, I hope you start thinking about what you’ll say the next time I ask you.”

Nobunaga rises, smoke trailing from her shoulders and falling off the lining of her cape. She strides to the tea hearth, setting down her cup and picking up the teapot in one fluid motion, then heads for the door. Okita can only stare after her, mouth hanging slightly open, the air in her lungs to retaliate but no words upon her tongue. She watches Nobunaga stop just before the hall, not even turning back to look at Okita, simply jerking her head to the side. “And now, I’ll shut up and leave you alone. As you requested,” she says, and with a whisper of her cape and the door, she’s gone.

With her goes the last of the room’s warmth, only fading remnants dwindling in the space where Nobunaga had been. Okita shivers beneath the single blanket, tugging it as close to her body as she can manage without exposing her bare skin to the cold. Below, she hears the fading thump of Nobunaga’s boots— skeleton now, or still human, Okita wonders idly— but that thought is soon replaced by the echoes of Nobunaga’s voice, which tremble through Okita’s mind like the wrathful spirit she knows Nobunaga to be.

It’s nonsense, all of what Nobunaga had said. It could never be anything more than that. Nobunaga had known war, but times have changed. The Shinsengumi would never think her gone for good; Kondo and Hijikata and Yamanami would vouch for that (she thinks not of Serizawa’s startled face as Hijikata cut through him, or of those who had supported him, made to atone for their mistakes with katanas at their bellies).

Nobunaga’s wrong about all of it. But if she’s so insistent on something Okita wants, then Okita will show her: she wants Nobunaga to take it back. It’s just a simple matter of following her down the stairs, confronting her in the kitchen while she’s human, taking those words back at the point of a katana. (But would that work on someone such as Nobunaga, who has nothing to lose in dying? Okita knows it wouldn’t work on her, as much because of her sickness as to her staunch honor.)

If only her body would respond. Okita fights it, the pull of the futon upon her and the pressure of her own chest anchoring her to it. Even if she could only make it down one floor and to her sword, that would be enough. Just something to make Nobunaga take it back. Something to wipe that smirk from her face. Anything to seize one victory for herself in this cursed place. Anything to reassure herself that the weight upon her chest is simply her illness, and not the encroaching doubt that has built itself up in this forest beside the gathering snow.

* * *

There isn’t a thing Nobunaga’s said that she hasn’t meant. She won’t retract what she means wholeheartedly, and if Okita doesn’t want her in the room otherwise, then it’s her loss.

It’s not until a week in that Nobunaga realizes how stupid they’ve both been acting.

In her defense, Okita had always been the one sending her away. Nobunaga may be tending to her, but that doesn’t mean she’ll go so far to coddle Okita and tell her what she does or doesn’t need to be mindful of. And if Okita would rather be cold than have Nobunaga be nearby and catch a fever for it, that’s not her problem, either.

(It is. She’s taking care of Okita, after all.)

Nobunaga uncurls bony digits from around the handle of the teapot, nestling it back in place over the blazing hearth. The fire here is warm, but nowhere near sufficient to keep Okita comfortable. That’s all Nobunaga, a steady blaze coming off her shoulders, little wisps of smoke winding idle circuits around the ceiling before departing for the gaps in the windows. Even fully shut, a hint of the winter breeze still slips in, and that’s enough to get Okita shivering and grasping for the blankets that Nobunaga brought up from Okita’s room.

But for now, Nobunaga is in the room, and Okita is still. Nobunaga fumbles with the jar of paste in her hands, struggling to balance its weight on fingers now half the width that Nobunaga is used to. So much shifting back and forth has Nobunaga absentmindedly trying to light fires with fleshy fingertips and nearly scalding herself on iron kettles. She’s got a pattern down now, though: when Okita is asleep, there’s nothing to keep Nobunaga human, and she fades back into this form.

From beside Nobunaga comes a stirring of breath: a whisper betraying Okita’s restlessness. Nobunaga watches her lips move, forming the shape of a name. Another dream, then. Okita’s been getting plenty of those, none of which Nobunaga asks about. Her interest in what lies outside the forest doesn’t extend so far as to intrude into Okita’s personal life. Setting down the jar of paste, Nobunaga picks up a dry rag and heads towards the door, opening it and kneeling to dip the rag in the vessel of water standing just outside in the cold.

Nobunaga is hardly gone for any time at all; less than a minute. When she returns, damp towel folded in her hands, Okita’s face has gone ghastly pale, the sight of it hitting Nobunaga like a physical blow. She looks as though she’s just been plucked out of the snow, frozen and half-buried, teetering on the verge of falling into a deeper and unwakeable sleep. The only proof of Okita’s life is the near-indistinguishable rise of her breathing and the frenzied trembling of her lips. There are names drifting up from them into the quiet: _Hijikata, Yamanami, Kondo_.

Nobunaga pays them no mind and sets the cloth over Okita’s forehead, adjusting it to make sure it won’t slip off. Who Okita calls for or dreams of is none of her concern. Nobunaga sits back on her haunches, watches Okita sleep for a moment. Her eyelids flicker with the faintest hints of movement: she’s looking for someone. Perhaps one of her comrades, the ones she claims to be close to.

If they had been so close, Nobunaga starts to wonder, why send Okita in alone? The thought is quashed immediately. Nobunaga would know more than anyone else what it had been like to send men off by themselves, sometimes to near-certain death. She’s lucky, in a sense, that none of her close retainers had suffered that fate. Even if they had, Nobunaga would have mourned, but no more than that. Grief had been taken out from her early on by fire and black powder, in a castle much like this one.

Nobunaga is pulled from her reverie by a tug on her cape. She thinks at first that she’s snagged it on the floorboards, but it’s not that: it’s a hand. Okita has wound her fingers in Nobunaga’s cape, and only now does Nobunaga realize that she’d been trying to grasp at something this whole time, finding Nobunaga’s cape more adequate than the layers of blankets.

“What are you dreaming of, Okita?” Nobunaga murmurs. She startles when Okita turns to her, eyes open wide, yet distant. She stares seemingly through Nobunaga, so much conviction in her gaze that Nobunaga ends up glancing over her shoulder to make sure nothing’s there.

“Yamanami,” she mumbles. “Will you do it?”

Ah, Nobunaga realizes, she’s delirious. She reaches down, trying to pry Okita’s fingers from her cape. “Do what?” she asks, if only to humor Okita to make her task a bit easier.

“Be my second.”

Nobunaga goes still with her fingers wrapped around Okita’s wrist. Of course. The penalty for deserting had been the same back in her time, too. Of course— how could she have overlooked that? How could she have mistaken the forlorn look in Okita’s eyes for anything aside from what it was, that unwilling acceptance of the inevitable? She’d let herself be swayed by memories of her own and what she’d told herself as she solidified her hold on Owari, and missed it for what it was.

“It’s okay,” Nobunaga tells her, saying the only thing she can say: “Just leave the rest to me.”

Okita seems not to have heard her. Her hands find Nobunaga’s and grip tight, ignoring the knurls of bone digging into her palm. “Please,” she breathes, and whispers, as if to draw her next breath from Nobunaga herself: “Nobunaga.”

There isn’t anything more Nobunaga can say. She lets Okita keep hold of her. Her other hand works with the clasp of her cape, loosening it so she can shrug the fabric off her shoulders and drape it over the blankets, its residual warmth seeping into them: into Okita’s dreams as well, she hopes.

Maybe it works. After a moment, Okita’s grip on Nobunaga goes slack. Nobunaga tucks Okita’s hand back beneath the sheets and stands, surveying her for a moment. Perhaps she isn’t imagining the hint of color that’s returned to Okita’s skin. What she knows for certain: Okita’s gone still again. She breathes, and nothing more. She’s fallen out of delirium and landed in the soft grasp of sleep, where Nobunaga hopes her imaginings haven’t followed her.

Stepping around Okita, Nobunaga pushes the door behind her aside and steps out onto the balcony. In the lull between passing storms, the forest is completely silent. Snow seeps up every sound before they can make their way to Nobunaga’s ears. It’s a quiet sort of peace that Nobunaga had very rarely known, and once had even enjoyed. It had been in a castle like this: back when she’d still felt the bite of cold, when there had been someone’s voice to speak to aside from her own.

Still, Nobunaga seats herself in the snow, melting herself a patch of wood. At her side, a second patch begins to form: a column of fire, reaching just above where her head would be, blazing beside her. It doesn’t speak to Nobunaga. Expecting it to would’ve been the height of foolishness beyond even delirium. Nor does Nobunaga voice her thoughts to it— Okita requires rest, and she won’t get that with Nobunaga jabbering at a clump of fire beneath the moon.

Come dawn, Nobunaga retreats from the approaching sunlight, saying her farewell to the bare spots on the balcony and greeting the warmth of her room. As expected, Okita is still asleep, with one difference. Her hands, protruding from beneath the covers, hold Nobunaga’s cape up around her shoulders, as if by doing so the peace that Nobunaga had wished for her might seep into her alongside its heat, and find a resting place for itself upon her face.

* * *

Another week. The depths of dreams and sweat-beaded skin relinquish Okita back to the conscious world, but not unscathed. A token of her journey sits nestled in her chest beside her heart, an ache that refuses to dissolve, throbbing away like a cough too shy to make its way up Okita’s throat.

Nobunaga is waiting by Okita’s bedside when she comes to. She waits for the skin on her arms to form with little more than a weighty sigh, one nearly familiar with its note of resignation. The only discomfort her body betrays is a slight tremor of her wrist as she reaches for Okita’s forehead. “Mm, good,” Nobunaga says, nodding at her. “Your fever’s broken. Give it a few more days, and then you can go out again, so long as you take it easy.”

Okita grunts by means of reply; pauses, as if to consider what she’s done. Nobunaga’s been keeping careful watch over her for nearly half a month. The least she can do is show her appreciation properly. “Thank you,” she says, threading the words begrudgingly through clenched teeth. Back with the Shinsengumi, being bedridden for so long like this would’ve driven Okita mad with loathing. Then again, she also wouldn’t have gotten lost in the snow if she were in Kyoto, so whose fault is that, really?

“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to, really,” Nobunaga tells her. There’s a gentle rattling as Nobunaga sets down a cup of tea for Okita, fresh steam pouring over the top of it. “I’d rather you didn’t. You sound like someone’s strangling you, and then I can’t tell if you’re sick or just disgusted with me.”

Okita drowns the hot words rising to her lips with a glug of even hotter tea. It scalds the lining of her throat, makes her sputter— she barely manages to swallow, and finds Nobunaga surveying her with the faintest hint of a smile that’s just as soon eclipsed by the rim of Nobunaga’s own cup.

As it does so often, silence falls over them again. Okita cradles her cup between her palms, taking in its warmth. From beside her comes a faint rustling noise, one that had danced on the boundaries of Okita’s dreams and greeted her in her few moments of lucidity. Nobunaga’s flames trail from her shoulders and down the sides of her cape. Of course, Okita scoffs to herself. Nobunaga seems incapable of doing anything without a certain flair of theatricality to it. But she’s grateful— it stings her to admit it, but she owes her health in part to Nobunaga. Had she not been taken in, Okita wouldn’t have even made it past the first few weeks of winter.

There must be something Nobunaga wants out of this, thinks Okita. She’d mentioned she couldn’t leave unless someone thought of her as anything other than what history has made her out to be. Perhaps that’s it— that would be reason enough for her to care for Okita. But if that had been everything, surely Nobunaga could’ve done this sooner. She could have revealed herself to the travelers trapped in the barrier with her, but she hadn’t.

Or, maybe a few hundred years have acclimatized Nobunaga to the idea of having her own personal kingdom, locked away from the world, and she hopes to persuade Okita to keep its secret. Another fruitless effort: whatever Nobunaga asks of her, that would hardly register when weighed against the assignment Kondo had given her.

But she does owe Nobunaga something. That much is clear. Nobunaga has taken her in, watched over her, sparred with her and kept her company in her own abrasive way. The least Okita could do is try and show some of the same courtesy. She works another mouthful of tea against her cheeks, casting a furtive glance at Nobunaga. After a moment’s consideration, she swallows and asks, “Does it hurt you when you turn human?”

“Hmm,” Nobunaga hums. For once, her response isn’t so quick to come. She seems to ponder the question, turning one arm over in front of her face with a waggling of her fingers. “It’s not so bad now,” she finally says. “I’ve mostly gotten used to it. It’s kind of uncomfortable having to keep my fire inside in this form, but it’s not unbearable.”

“Oh,” breathes Okita. So she doesn’t have to worry needlessly about Nobunaga after all— though simply knowing that doesn’t calm her thoughts at all. If anything, that answer just sparks more questions: is Nobunaga lying; had Nobunaga forgotten the taste of pain after so long spent as an unfeeling skeleton?

Astute as ever, Nobunaga asks her: “Something on your mind?”

“Um…” Okita stammers, casting her mind around for a suitable reply. “I— did you really look like this when you were alive?” she says. “I kind of imagined someone… taller.”

“I did, at one point,” Nobunaga says. “You’re probably seeing me as someone around your age. Or maybe this is just the form I’ll take from now on! I don’t know— this is a first for both of us.” Nobunaga snickers, a sound like snapping fire, so warm and inviting that Okita has to catch herself before her burgeoning smile fully works its way onto her face. She hopes that she’s concealed it from Nobunaga, but it seems it’s gone unnoticed. Nobunaga sets her cup down and drums her fingers on her thighs, balancing her chin on the heel of her palm. “What’s got you in such a curious mood today?”

“I’ve been out for days,” Okita says, her answer as sharp and swift as her blade. “Forgive me if I want to get some variety now that I’m awake.”

“Alright, I see. You don’t have to be so snippy.” Nobunaga doesn’t even have the decency to sound chastised; if anything, her grin widens as she glances at Okita. “Anything else you wanna know?”

The question that Nobunaga asks is pointless; they both know it. There are so many things Okita would ask of Nobunaga given the chance, and equally as many that Nobunaga might not answer. Okita takes in a breath, begins to speak. What leaves her is not what she’d intended to ask. It’s just a wayward thought making its way through her mind that’s found a voice, a memory that might not even have been real: “What’s with the fire you keep calling?” she says. “I keep thinking I saw you outside with it.”

Nobunaga’s fires dwindle to a hush. Nobunaga’s face darkens, locking Okita beneath her gaze. Instantly, Okita realizes her mistake. She’s stumbled upon something that Nobunaga knows she’d seen once, and never meant for her to see again. None of this anger touches Nobunaga’s voice. She simply says, in a level tone that freezes Okita more solid than any blizzard wind ever could, “It’s just to keep me company. So much empty space wears on you, after all this time.”

“Oh,” Okita says. Somehow, she’d almost convinced herself that it was Nobunaga trying to keep herself warm, or something along those lines. “Why not just build a scarecrow?”

“That takes too much work.” Nobunaga waves a hand dismissively, her movement and the breeze that follows calling the flames on her shoulders back to fluttering life. “Why would I waste the time and effort when I can just use my power?”

“I guess you have a point.” Okita lifts her cup to her lips and takes a drink from it: not from any thirst, but to let the coming quiet draw itself out. For once, she’d welcome back the stagnant silences between them. But Nobunaga is Nobunaga; she goes by no one’s plans or wants other than her own.

“Why?” Nobunaga says, leaning back to reach the hearth and pour herself more tea. “Did you think it looked human or something? Am I that good?”

For this, Okita has no sure answer. Her memories of the fire are unclear at best, made hazy by the sun glinting off the ice into her eyes, and then her fevered vision’s confusing blur. “No,” she answers, a tinge of puzzlement hanging from her voice. “I was just wondering.”

“Oh, is that so?” Nobunaga’s smile returns, though something about it is different. Its apparent lightness fails to mask the mingled disappointment and relief in Nobunaga’s gaze, which she quickly pulls away from Okita.

“It shouldn’t matter to you.” Okita can’t help herself; she mumbles her thoughts into her cup, as if that alone might contain them and keep them from Nobunaga. Nobunaga hears: she doesn’t look back at Okita, but she does tilt her head, a clear sign that she’s listening. Okita goes on: “I don’t get why you care so much about what I think. You’re my host, but your obligations don’t go beyond giving me a place to stay and something to eat. You don’t have to let me stay up here in your room. So why do you? Is it because you want something from me?”

The smile is back on Nobunaga’s face before Okita’s even finished speaking. A chuckle falls from her into the ensuing silence, rippling through the room. “I thought you said you were close to those people in your group,” she says.

Taken aback, Okita curls her hands tighter around her cup. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Haven’t you ever just been around someone just to spend time with them?” Nobunaga asks. “Or is your group so stuck on this ‘honor’ thing that you can’t even do something as simple as enjoy someone’s companionship for the sake of it?”

“It’s not companionship if we’re both trapped in the same place,” Okita mumbles.

“Are we, though? You could have asked me to take you back to your room after that first night, or asked me to leave. You haven’t objected to me being here, either.”

“Because you insisted on taking care of me!”

“And now you’re better,” Nobunaga says. “But I notice you haven’t been in any hurry to leave. Am I right?”

“Are you saying you want me to?” Okita jabs at her, but that’s just a front. Okita can’t help but wonder if Nobunaga might see through even this, drawing out the truth with uncanny accuracy from where it lies twinging within Okita’s chest. She is right— though Okita can’t let her know it. That would just get Nobunaga crowing about how she knows Okita well, something she doesn’t want to stomach now: not when, not for the first time, Nobunaga’s got her thinking again.

Nobunaga is by no means good company. She’s loud and abrasive; she’s Nobunaga. But it’s because of this that Okita hasn’t left yet: she’s unexpected, and Okita doesn’t know how to respond to that. Every time she’s thought she’s had Nobunaga pinned down, Nobunaga would soundly evade her expectations, and Okita would have to start over. At some point, she’d given up, and hadn’t even realized it. Now Nobunaga is just Nobunaga, the vestiges of the title of Demon King falling from her shoulders like her own cascading flame.

And Okita, unknowingly, had stopped being the First Captain of the Shinsengumi. Around Nobunaga, she’s just Okita. Displays of decorum and expectations of conduct mean nothing to Nobunaga; there’s no use in performing for her if she’ll just see right past them.

(Okita could, of course, say she’s keeping up her form for the day she’ll return to Kyoto. She’d thought that, up until her most recent bout of sickness kept her down for so long that she’d wondered if her last moments might be with Nobunaga, and wondered why the thought had carried such a weight as to linger in her mind in the first place).

“If it would make you happy, then who am I to stop you?” Nobunaga says to her. “If ditching me as soon as you can move will make you feel better, then go ahead. I just thought you might want someone around to talk to so you don’t have to stew in your own head all the time, even if you say you don’t like being near me.”

“That’s because I don’t,” Okita mumbles, only just able to stop a note of hesitation from ringing clear through her voice. “You’re persistent and annoying. I bet everyone else who’s been stuck in this place with you avoided you because they wouldn’t get any peace and quiet otherwise.”

That’s patently untrue, but Nobunaga still laughs. “Low blow,” she says, grinning broadly. “Well, whatever the case is, that doesn’t change what I’m trying to do.”

“And that is?”

“Help you live long enough so you can die the way you want,” Nobunaga says. Okita, facing the window, goes still. There’s no way that Nobunaga can see the look of shock that’s overtaken her, but she feels as though she’s being easily read nonetheless. Nobunaga continues, “Or at least long enough for you to go back home and see your friends again.”

Okita whips around, a hundred different replies hot on her tongue. She’s being too obvious now; but if it’s Nobunaga, it doesn’t matter. Who’s Nobunaga going to stumble upon that she could tell of every wish and creeping doubt? “Why?” she asks, fixing Nobunaga beneath a glare as furious as any ofire.

“Because it’s important to you.” Nobunaga tilts her head at Okita, studying her closely. No, that’s not all there is to it; there’s more. That shine in her eyes isn’t all curiosity. Nobunaga has been far too removed from the world to feel something as sentimental as regret, but she still carries its weight with her, its regrets. “Isn’t that right?”

“It is,” Okita says, the words falling heavily from her lips. Again, Nobunaga’s defied her understanding— or rather, this is the first time Okita’s truly tried to understand her. Here in the clutter of Nobunaga’s room, it would be hard not to. The answer to every question Okita could ask of her is in this place, woven into its tangle: the utter disorganization of it all is it. It’s similar to how Okita, wracked with pangs of yearning for home, would think of dango one hour and Hijikata’s takuan the next; dream of her room in Edo blurred over into the streets of Kyoto and the futon Nobunaga’s lent her.

The difference is that Okita can leave. She has a home to return to, the Shinsengumi and her sister. Everything that holds meaning for Nobunaga has been crammed into this upper room, sealed off from both the world and Nobunaga herself. Even in her cursed form, she can still move: the relics of her past just sit beside her, gathering dust. They reflect nothing but Nobunaga’s fire: none of the warmth, hardly any of the feelings they had once stirred up in her. No wonder she had taken so quickly to Okita. Potential enemy or not, rejection or not, Okita spoke back to her. Nobunaga had tried to understand her not out of any ulterior desires, but because she’d hoped to be understood in turn.

Nobunaga takes in a breath, no doubt to say some self-satisfied thing about how she was right, wasn’t she? Okita cuts her off, murmuring clearly across the rustling of her fire: “Oda?” she says. “Or— Nobunaga?”

“Oh, we’re on a first-name basis now?”

“Don’t make me regret this,” Okita huffs under her breath. That seems to get Nobunaga’s attention; she leans forward, eyes intent and fixed on Okita. “Look, you’re right. You’ve only been trying to help me, even if you are irritating to the point of being unbearable. And I’ve treated you poorly.” Okita’s hands make balls of the covers, her knuckles digging into the fabric. “I haven’t really made things easy for you, either,” she says. “And regardless of what I would like to believe, some of the things you’ve said aren’t untrue. So I apologize.”

“Ahh.” For once, it’s Nobunaga who’s caught off guard. She doesn’t seem to know how to react, though Okita can’t quite tell if it’s because this had been so unexpected, or if Nobunaga’s lack of experience fielding apologies for the past decades. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, you know. I’m not entirely blameless, either.”

“There is,” Okita insists. “If I’m to say I conducted myself well, then I need to acknowledge my mistakes where I make them. Surely someone like you would understand.”

“You really are a stickler for the rules, aren’t you?” Nobunaga chuckles. “Alright. I’ll accept your apology, on one condition?”

“What is it?”

“I think I owe you one, too,” Nobunaga says. “Not for keeping who I am from you— I’m not sorry for that. But I haven’t been very considerate of what you’ve said to me.”

“It’s fine,” Okita mutters. Somehow, having Nobunaga apologize to her feels all sorts of out of place. Maybe it’s because she’d never imagined the prideful Demon King swallowing her ego long enough to eke out the words— there’s another unexpected turn of Nobunaga’s. “We’ll just call it even. Sound fair?”

“Oh, good.” Nobunaga rocks back and forth on her knees, smiling impishly at her. “Because if you hadn’t accepted my apology, we’d be in all sorts of awkward places, and then it’d be my job as a host to— ”

“Oda Nobunaga,” Okita groans. Of course the moment wouldn’t last. Why had she ever thought it would? “Please do me a favor, and shut up.”

“If I do, will you owe me one later?”

“How about this? As a host, you’re obligated to let me rest, so shut up.”

“Well, you have me there.” Nobunaga settles in place, taking Okita’s cup from her outstretched hands and setting it to the side. She watches Okita settle herself back down against the futon, drawing the pillow beneath her neck and nestling into it. That strange glimmer in her eyes still hasn’t left them: it flickers with the fire building from Nobunaga’s cape, its warmth suffusing the room and calling Okita back to the familiarities of sleep. “Good night, Okita,” she says, reaching down to smooth the covers.

“Souji,” Okita whispers.

“Huh?”

“I never told you my first name,” Okita says. “It’s Souji. But don’t ever call me that, or I really will see if I can’t run you through.”

“Ah, alright,” laughs Nobunaga. “I won’t, I promise.”

“Good.” Okita curls up on her side, tucking her arms tight against her body. She hears Nobunaga move throughout the room: the gentle clink of the iron kettle, the rush of fire across its surface as she prods tinder into the hearth. If, by chance, she should hear her given name breathed in a hush beneath that sound, Okita dismisses it— after all, she’s tired, and she could be hearing things in the fire. And if that sound had been real, and if it had resonated against the spasm of unknown emotion through her heart— then she could deal with it when she wakes, ignoring its allure for the welcome relief of slumber.

* * *

With the passing of the second month goes the worst of the winter cold. From the vantage point of her room, Nobunaga watches the ice relinquish its hold on the forest, its bitter chill replaced by the soothing touch of rain. The air hasn’t grown hot enough yet for moisture in the air to become oppressive with its presence. It’s just right for Nobunaga to sit out on the balcony, basking in the cold soaking into her skin, playfully poking Okita’s stomach to get her to retreat back into the dry shelter of Nobunaga’s room.

By some unspoken agreement, Okita still sleeps in Nobunaga’s futon. It’s easier for them both: that’s the reason Nobunaga thinks Okita’s used to justify her staying. Whatever that reason may be, Nobunaga doesn’t question it. She will never confess the fullness of the truth to Okita, but she’s gotten used to waking up to the steady sound of Okita breathing, the caress of her own warmth against her skin at those times when Okita is awake.

Usually, she sleeps. Nobunaga understands: there’s not much to do in a place like this. The weather hasn’t turned hospitable enough for either of them to be confident in Okita venturing outside. She’s tried to spar Nobunaga in the confines of the castle, but tight corridors and cluttered rooms make for poor battlefields, and those matches are short-lived. Before long, Okita’s learned everything Nobunaga can throw at her, and there’s the end of that. Okita’s tired, too: she’s tried to conceal it from Nobunaga, but her health had wavered in those early winter months and never quite recovered. (Nobunaga tries to ignore the lingering sting of her conscience reminding her exactly what had happened.)

Stretching her limbs, Nobunaga rises from the place on the floor she’d been sleeping, curled up in a crescent-moon curve by the hearth. That’s where it’s always felt most natural to sleep, by the little ring of rocks and coals that Nobunaga, in her cape and hat, wouldn’t look so out of place in. Strangely, today she feels a little residual soreness— not something she’s felt before. Maybe the rain’s brought it on.

With the weight of sleepiness still thick upon her limbs, Nobunaga fumbles for the iron kettle. She lights the fire and puts it on, and settles back to wait. Okita won’t be up for a while. She’s rarely up before Nobunaga— and Nobunaga, not an early riser herself, is left to wonder if that might mean anything, if at all. Okita doesn’t seem the type to stay so firmly asleep. A wry, if wistful smile crosses Nobunaga’s face. There is no fault of Okita’s here. She’s just sleeping in on her vacation— a long, eight-month one at that.

A quiet sigh slips past Nobunaga’s lips and vanishes in the pattering of the rain on the balcony. From what Okita has told her, the world outside is no less turbulent than Nobunaga had left it. Toyotomi had finished her work; Tokugawa had followed in his stead, and several lifetimes of peace passed through the years like the spring breeze through the flowering treetops. Okita had said she was fighting on the shogun’s side— wouldn’t that make them allies by extension then, Nobunaga thinks with a chuckle— but the conflict had been escalating.

All of this, Nobunaga thinks about as she would a smear on her greaves or an inconvenient snowfall. It’s news that she accepts, and nothing more. Even knowing the fate of her life’s work, it no longer seems consequential enough for her to care. She’s been away from the world for far too long. Its affairs are now little more than stories to be listened to as much as tales of her campaigns are still spread through Japan.

But Okita— that’s different. Nobunaga’s eyes stray to her motionless form, deep asleep and buried under a mountain of blankets. Okita, she cares for far too much. Nobunaga knows her fault; she’s been alone for all this time. Any company is ambrosia sweet enough that Nobunaga would indulge far greater slights against her than she would’ve stood for in life. That doesn’t excuse the emotion that rises from some deep and near-forgotten part of Nobunaga’s heart, the familiarity she’s so susceptible to. Taking Okita into her room, really— that had been foolish, entirely sentimental. A token gesture to assuage the lonely aching of her still-human heart.

Okita will have to leave. Soon after that, Okita will die. Those are the simple facts: the reality of the world they’ve been removed from, leaking into this one. Any sort of fondness would be wasted on Okita. She’ll leave, and even if she still thinks of Nobunaga beyond the barrier, someday even those thoughts will stop and Nobunaga will be left as she was before, no less isolated, no closer to the external world where Okita will have been laid to rest.

The teapot, heated by a fire fueled by Nobunaga’s simmering thoughts, begins to leak steam from its mouth. Nobunaga grabs the can of green tea powder, grateful for something to divert her attention. A puff of powder flies into her face as she wrenches it open; Nobunaga sputters for a moment, coughing the bitterness from lungs. She reaches for the teapot to take it off the fire, and instantly draws her hand back, hissing through clenched teeth, cradling her hand close to her stomach. Her gaze flits from her reddening palm to Okita, still asleep, tugging the blankets higher towards her neck.

Nobunaga looks down again, poking at her palm. Stifling the urge to flinch, she brings her finger close to the teapot. Even from a fair distance, she can feel its heat against her skin— she can feel. Okita is asleep, but—

Nobunaga holds her arms out: all flesh, no bone. She hadn’t realized when she’d been turned human again, or even if she hadn’t been turned back when Okita went to sleep the night before. This is no dream; the growing stinging in her palm is proof enough, and Okita—

Nobunaga freezes. She hardly dares to move, other than to lean closer, catching a glimpse of Okita’s face. A smile curves through her restful expression, as unmistakable as the burn on Nobunaga’s hand. Nothing betrays whether she might be dreaming or not. Okita continues to doze, unfazed by Nobunaga hovering incredulously over her and the squeaky protests of the water boiling in the teapot.

Winding her good hand in her cape, Nobunaga yanks the teapot off the fire before its clamor can wake Okita. Hastily, she scoops two spoonfuls of powder into the pot and lets it steep. Maybe they were too large; the tea might turn out a hint too strong, but if anything that seems to endear her more to Okita: not one to waste supplies, she’s taken to drinking the bungled tea with little protest and a playful grimace.

Rising to her feet, Nobunaga slips past Okita and out onto the balcony. She leaves the door ajar, but only just: enough so Okita will know that Nobunaga’s out there, hasn’t left her alone.

A thunderstorm advances over the forest towards Kyoto, fat droplets pelting Nobunaga’s face and gathering in rivulets draining from the sides of her hat. Nobunaga breathes it all in, lifts her chin to the sky and lets the water cascade over her face. Were she still a skeleton, she’d be throwing smoke up in clumps towards the blackened thunderheads. Now, she simply drinks it all in. Her palm, upturned, protests with redoubled pangs of pain. Nobunaga doesn’t mind them. If anything, she welcomes them. They remind her of how it is to feel, the depth and thrill of it. They tell her that three months is nothing in the span of fifty years, or even half of that, and yet of the hundreds of years she’s spent in this forest, these coming moments will be the ones in which she’ll be the most alive.


	4. Chapter 4

Winter yields the rest of the forest to the blossoms and rains of spring, making good its retreat to gather its strength in the months to come. With it comes a surge in Okita’s recovery: soon she’s strong enough to stand, and then to wake up earlier than Nobunaga, taking up her sword and filling the air in the courtyard with flashes of silver.

Sometimes, Nobunaga watches her. When she’s not going out into the forest to provide them both with some semblance of distance, she lurks beneath the wooden eaves, following Okita’s path across the courtyard with her eyes. Okita’s form is not lacking by any means, but she seems somehow diminished: as if the winter winds had carried something off with them, and left a void in Okita’s chest that she struggles in vain to fill. Neither she nor Nobunaga mention her harsh and frequent coughing; Okita refuses to let it interrupt her until it builds to the point where even holding her sword becomes impossible.

Okita twists between the overgrown brush, her movements smooth and deliberate. Nobunaga places her hand down against the walkway and plops herself onto it. She tires of novelty easily, and yet watching Okita is something she thinks she could do forever— because of the ephemerality of it, she thinks. These forms, repeated until even Nobunaga knows well what Okita’s next move will be, will fade to memory, and then to nothing. When Okita leaves, this will be what Nobunaga has to remember her by (and if, perhaps, Nobunaga’s penchant for the subtle beauty that comes from moments of living had taken to Okita, then to watch becomes even more crucial, and to lose her even more a tragedy).

Okita finishes her routine and lowers her sword, wiping beads of sweat onto the her bracers. The muted amber of her eyes shines intently as she seeks out Nobunaga, wandering close to the edge of the courtyard. “Nobunaga,” she says, her voice level and lower than Nobunaga’s heard it in a while. “Will you spar with me?”

“Again?” Nobunaga asks. “You know you always beat me, Okita.”

“It’s just to keep in shape,” Okita protests. “Even something is better than nothing at all.”

“I bet…” Nobunaga begins, shedding her cape and hopping to her feet, “that you’ll win in about twenty seconds. No, less.”

“Maybe longer,” Okita says. “We have the whole courtyard for you to run away from me now.”

“That was once!” Nobunaga huffs, rolling up her sleeves and drawing her sword. “And I was testing you to see if you knew how to fight indoors.”

“One of my first combat sorties was indoors,” Okita tells her. She walks a handful of paces away before turning and settling into a ready stance, blade held up in anticipation of Nobunaga’s first strike. “Alright. When you’re ready.”

Nobunaga hops to the side and vanishes into a thicket of overgrown bamboo. It’s not like it conceals her fully— red and black stand out garishly against the natural greens— but it’s enough for Okita to lose the shape of her, for Nobunaga’s emergence from it to make her second-guess her guard.

Their blades meet with a clang of metal, singing a song welcome to both Nobunaga and Okita’s ears. Okita draws back to ready her own strike; Nobunaga whips around and vanishes back into the brush, evading Okita’s thrust. Of course Nobunaga would last longer like this, Okita thinks. Back when she’d had her army, in those early days, Nobunaga had fought in the woods like this.

Nobunaga’s next swing comes in low, turned away by a twist of Okita’s katana. This time, Nobunaga doesn’t shy away. She lashes out with a kick, but she’s misjudged herself. So long spent in a different form has skewed her sense of balance. She wobbles, starts to topple past Okita, and finds herself with one of Okita’s hands wound in the collar of her coat, the other holding her katana, spine-first, to Nobunaga’s throat.

“How reckless,” Okita says, waiting for Nobunaga to right herself before releasing her. “You should be the one practicing out here, not me.”

“I wouldn’t need to,” Nobunaga retorts, dusting herself off. “I’d just use my rifle and shoot you before you came too close. Besides, your form’s not too hot, either.”

“Oh? Why do you say that?”

“Going after the enemy with the back of your sword, really?” Nobunaga grins and flicks the tip of Okita’s katana, a peal like birdsong drifting into the air. “Why do the people of Kyoto call you a manslayer if that’s all you do?”

“You’re the exception,” Okita sighs, a puff of breath flipping up the strand of hair sticking up between her bangs. She pulls her lower lip between her teeth, grinds it back and forth a bit before saying: “I like you better alive.”

It’s the closest Okita’s admitted to liking Nobunaga’s company. Most likely, it’s the closest she can come: she’s devoted to her friends, and expecting that to change for whatever fleeting attachment this is would be foolish.

(Nobunaga can imagine it, though. She could imagine that Okita sees her as a friend in turn, if only to justify how dangerously close she’s let Okita come to her.)

“But seriously, why do you focus on swordsmanship so much?” Nobunaga asks her. “Surely you must have guns in your time, too. Why don’t you ever practice shooting one?”

“Because I’ve never bothered to learn.”

“Why not?”

“It’s dishonest,” Okita says, her mouth curling with distaste. “If you’re willing to kill a man, you should look him in the eye and hear what he has to say before you gut him. Or if you intend to kill him quickly, at least give him the courtesy of seeing who it is that’s cut him down.”

“You kill with a sword because you think it’s more honorable?” Nobunaga stops halfway to her cape, staring open-mouthed at Okita. “I knew you were old-fashioned, but that beats everything!”

“It’s not— what if I’d had a gun that time instead of a sword? You can’t just fire a rifle indoors.”

“If you’d used gun, you could’ve assassinated your target quietly from a distance. No need to risk the lives of your men just to be _courteous_.”

“The men who joined us know the risks of what we do,” Okita spits out. “They know the nature of our enemy. And if we decided to turn to guns, we’d be saying we’re just as desperate as the rebels who use them. What kind of an image would that send?”

“Always about the honor with you, isn’t it?” Nobunaga throws her arms up, seizing her cape and throwing it recklessly over her shoulders. She doesn’t even bother to secure it in place before she walks back across the courtyard, striding to within an arm’s-reach of Okita. “You haven’t seen real, open war, have you? Just these little conflicts— guess what, Okita? When it comes to war, the side who insists on clinging to honor is the side that’ll lose.”

“How would you know that?” Okita asks her. “You wouldn’t know a thing about fighting with honor. You burned anyone who stood in your way. Your close ally turned on you because of what you’d done. There’s a reason people think of you the way they do, Nobunaga!”

“I’d know because I’ve lost!” Nobunaga clenches her teeth, taking a long breath. She hadn’t realized she’d raised her voice so loud, not until Okita had blinked in the wake of the echoes ringing over the courtyard. “But of course you wouldn’t know. If all people focus on are the measures I took to unite the country, of course they’d never mention him.”

“Who?” asks Okita. “Your mentor?”

“My brother.” Nobunaga’s gaze shifts; she kicks her boot against the gravel, watches it bounce away from her in every direction. “He betrayed me once, and I forgave him. I knew he hadn’t meant for things to go the way they did. I couldn’t be seen with him, but I couldn’t give the order to kill him, so I sent him into exile.”

“But he— ”

“And then he came back a second time,” Nobunaga continues. “And that time I had to stop him personally. Regardless of what I wanted myself, my goddamn honor couldn’t stand if he was left alive a second time. It’d be foolish, see? And if I wanted to keep control of the clan, to make sure no one else died needlessly, I couldn’t act like the Fool of Owari anymore.”

She expects Okita to say something— a retort, some reply. All Okita does is stare back at Nobunaga: breathless, waiting. “His name was Nobukatsu,” she murmurs, closing her eyes to keep her fire from pouring from them. “He was hardly older than a man. At heart, he was still a boy. He didn’t even resist when I came to take his life.”

Okita shifts uneasily, fingers clenching and unclenching around the hilt of her sword. As if she’s remembered it’s still drawn, she fumbles with its scabbard. Nobunaga pays no mind to the uncharacteristic clumsy scrape of the iron guard against the scabbard. “I’m sorry,” Okita whispers, daring to take a step towards her. “I didn’t know.”

“I was born in a time of war,” Nobunaga says. “It’s only natural that I lost someone like that. That was the lesson you had to learn back then. There was so much infighting that you weren’t truly a daimyo until you’d killed your own brother— or at least, that’s how it seemed.”

“I— ”

“Don’t.” Nobunaga’s reply is sharp and short, stopping Okita in her tracks like a rifle shot. She doesn’t want to hear what Okita might have to say. That grief of hers is long gone, though never buried; there hadn’t been anything left of that castle when Nobunaga had finished with it. “That’s just how things were in my time. They’d better not be the same now.”

“They— they aren’t.”

“Then ignore what I said,” Nobunaga tells her. “I spoke out of place. Things are different in your time, and I have no right to belittle something as valuable to you as that.”

“But it doesn’t mean you’re wrong.” Okita’s voice shakes as she plays with her obi, chancing a quick glance at Nobunaga. For once, she seems to waver, uncertain if anything she could say might make this situation right.

“It’s fine,” Nobunaga mutters. She’d made her peace with herself long ago; she’d told herself that it was best her brother had died at her hands. That was the one unspoken advantage to being family: the ends that came were short and quick, merciful compared to the niceties that war could draw out. Her brother wouldn’t have lasted long on his own, not in a time like that.

“I— ”

“I said it’s fine.” Out of the corner of her eye, Nobunaga sees the corner of her cape beginning to slip from her shoulder. She grabs for it, securing it around her neck with the clasp, immersing herself in its every detail.

“Nobunaga?” Okita’s voice has returned to its normal register, though it sounds almost timid with how soft it is. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. No guarantee I’ll answer, though.”

“Why are you here?” Okita asks. “I mean— why did you want to live so badly that you let yourself be cursed like this?”

It’s an unexpected question, though not entirely unwarranted. Nobunaga would be lying if she said she hadn’t asked it of herself sometimes. Of course Okita would think of it like that: in an age where honor was a liability as much as an obligation, where brotherhood meant nothing but bloodlines meant everything, the act of living must seem more a fight for survival than anything else. “I didn’t know it would be this bad,” Nobunaga says. “I thought maybe I’d be stuck here for a few years until someone who’d fought under my banner stumbled into this place. I thought maybe after that I could come back and finish what I started, if it wasn’t too late.”

“And… and what if you could leave, now?”

“If I could leave, I would’ve done it already,” Nobunaga laughs. “Whatever the case, I’ve made my peace. I think, now, I’ll just see what it’s like in whatever time I come out in and live the rest of my life that way, if I make it out of here at all.”

“How can you be so certain?” Okita twists her kimono between her hands, leaving miniscule wrinkles in the fabric. “Everyone you know is gone. Nothing’s the same as in your time. How can you be so calm about it all?”

“I’ve had a long time to think about it,” Nobunaga says. “I’ve made my peace with it. At this point, I think I’d just like to see what’s happened to the world I left behind.”

“Oh.” That’s all Okita says: she sways in place, fidgets with the hilt of her sword, glances up at Nobunaga, then the sky.

“Okita.” A call of her name draws Okita’s attention back to Nobunaga. A rapid blink wipes the sheen from her eyes, but not before Nobunaga’s caught a glimpse of it. She recognizes it; in those days when the name _Nobunaga_ still felt stranger on her than _Kippoushi,_ she’d let herself indulge in her doubts, too. Time and necessity had wrenched that habit from her, but she knows it well enough. “The world will keep changing regardless of what you do. Maybe you’ll have a hand in it, and maybe not. Even if you’re afraid of the shape it’ll take, that shouldn’t hold you back from being a part of it. You don’t have to seal yourself up behind your group and your sword to live.”

Okita nods, and nothing else. It’s the most Nobunaga could’ve hoped from her. It’s enough, she thinks with a shake of her head, turning back towards the stairwell. “Come on,” she says. “You must be hungry after that. I’ll make the broth if you handle the tea.”

“You always put too much powder in,” Okita mumbles.

“I keep putting less powder in every time.”

“That just means you’re putting in way too much.”

“That’s why I’m asking you to do it, oh master of swordsmanship and tea.” Nobunaga jabs an elbow at Okita’s side, nudging her between her ribs. Okita doesn’t quite smile, but she does raise her eyes from the ground, meeting Nobunaga’s. Thankfully, that indecisive air has gone from her expression. Something else lurks within it now, likewise familiar, vanishing before Nobunaga can put a name to it. It’s alright, Nobunaga thinks, and puts it from her mind. So long as Okita isn’t questioning herself anymore— that’s an outcome Nobunaga can live with.

* * *

It isn’t uncommon for Okita to return from the courtyard and find Nobunaga already in her room, cleaning her rifle. The thing about marksmanship, Okita notes wryly, is that you can only try so many things before all of them become old.

Today’s different— a distinct scent hangs near the rafters alongside the perpetual heat, not the iron of Okita’s illness or Nobunaga’s rifles, but sweet. Nobunaga waves to Okita as she shuts the door: she’s thrown off her cape and her greaves, and sits cross-legged at a table that’s emerged from beneath all the clutter.

“Okitaaaa!” Nobunaga calls to her. “Took you forever to come back here. What kept you? Were you challenging the bamboo in the courtyard to a duel to the death? Was that it?”

“You know perfectly well what I was doing.” Okita doesn’t spare Nobunaga more than a glance as she undoes her greaves and bracers, tying them to each other and slinging them over her shoulder. Only then does she look up at Nobunaga— she’s staring back expectantly, undisguisedly so. Okita’s gaze falls upon the white ceramic vessel in front of Nobunaga, and her nose wrinkles. “Sake?”

“Do you know.” Nobunaga leans forward, watching Okita’s fingers work in her obi. “Do you know how long I’ve spent not being able to drink a single thing? Well, now I remembered, and I’m not letting this opportunity go to waste. Hm.” She sits back, pouring herself another cup and draining it: a regular cup, Okita notes; that golden skull cup is still somewhere out of sight.

“Is this what you’ve been doing the whole afternoon?” Okita says, setting her katana aside and re-tying her obi. “Holing up in here and drinking like some lazy shogun?”

“I’ll have you know— ” Nobunaga pours herself another cup— “that if that’s what Tokugawa’s line is doing, they got it from _me._ ”

Okita sighs, shaking her head. Nobunaga’s eyes stay upon her, even when she turns her back to drape her armor over her sword, dangling the pieces from its guard. She’s never been bothered by Nobunaga’s staring; it’s an understandable part of her. Even now, the novelty of having another person to look at hasn’t worn off. A few hundred years of isolation will do that to anyone. Only this time, there’s something changed: Okita feels it tumble over restlessly in her chest, and shakes her head again. Now she’s the one who’s being silly: there’s no way Nobunaga could affect her sickness.

“Don’t tell me you don’t drink with your comrades, Okita!” Nobunaga’s knuckles rap the table, a sudden burst of sound. “You guys still do that in your time, don’t you? If not, you really are all sticks in the mud and I might as well find a way out of here to bust some sense into you!”

“I drink,” Okita mutters. “Rarely.”

“Stick in the muuud,” Nobunaga chants at her. “Ah, you know what I say about things not mattering in here. Cut loose a little!”

“Do you realize how irresponsible you sound?” Okita sits down opposite Nobunaga, ignoring the second cup that gets pushed to her across the table. “Even you should remember that a leader must account for the actions of their men.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” Nobunaga jabs at her. “You have an untrained kennel. My guys, if they had a problem, they settled it amongst themselves. Oh, maybe that’s why Micchi came after me like that…”

“Lucky for you.” Okita’s mouth twists in what might be a smile, what might be a bitter laugh bitten back. Those few times she’d gone drinking with the rest of the Shinsengumi, she’d either had to clean up after everyone, or gotten in between a few fights— that’s what you got, letting farmers and rogues under your banner— but it was a necessary consequence.

“Come on,” Nobunaga cajoles to her. “You haven’t had a drink in months, either. You know, I bet we made better sake in our time than you do now! We had to use ours to wash out wounds sometime, that’s why, so it had to be pure— that’s the only kind I’d take with me, for sure. Mm, mm.” Nobunaga nods, assured of something that Okita can’t begin to understand. She’s rambling; Okita’s got half a mind to tell her to shut up, but there’s something soothing about Nobunaga’s words. She speaks of a time Okita knows nothing of, of things Okita has little stake in: it’s idle talk, just chatter, so far from the usual business that Hijikata and Kondo would bring to the table with their drink.

“Fine,” Okita concedes, holding up a hand. “Just one or two. The last thing I need is both of us getting drunk and you deciding to burn the place down with me in it.”

“Aww, I wouldn’t do that to you, Okita.” Nobunaga leans over, having to scramble to her knees to reach across the table. “There, there, drink up.”

Okita cradles the sake cup between her palms, giving it a careful sniff. It’s sweeter than anything she remembers from Kyoto, but the Shinsengumi didn’t exactly have an endless budget. They met where they could, and— Okita submerges her laugh with a mouthful of sake— Kondo and Hijikata could’ve probably gotten some decent funding if only they’d allowed the men to raise money under the premise of going drinking.

The sake is more intense than anything Okita’s tasted: condensed would be the word she’d use. “You weren’t kidding about having good sake,” Okita says, dragging her thumb over the corner of her mouth. “How many cups have you had?”

“I don’t know.” Nobunaga finishes her cup and falls onto her side, staring at Okita from around the corner of the table. “I don’t feel any different. No, I do, but it’s not the same. I think it doesn’t have the same effect on me anymore. More than two?”

“Really?” Okita arches an eyebrow, peering down at Nobunaga. “Where’s the rest of the bottles, then?”

“See, that’s the thing.” Nobunaga rights herself, tapping the side of the flask with a fingernail. “It’s endless. Part of the castle thing.”

“I think you’re bluffing.”

“No, really! Look!”

Before Okita can stop her, Nobunaga sweeps the flask off the table and holds it up to her mouth, tilting her head back to let the sake flow down her throat. Shock yields to exasperation, then to amusement. Even someone like Nobunaga wouldn’t be able to handle that much sake for long. Okita sits back, folding her arms over her chest, waiting for Nobunaga to sputter and give up.

Except Nobunaga keeps drinking. The seconds stretch on into what could be half a minute. The sake shows no signs of slowing or stopping. Nobunaga keeps going, unfazed, banging her other hand against the table in time with the wavering of the liquid.

“Okay,” Okita says, getting up. “Now this is just getting ridiculous. Are you really— ”

She’s halfway around the table when Nobunaga gives out. Nobunaga slams the flask back down on the table, sake dribbling down her chin and onto her cloak, frantically gulping down the rest. Okita knows well the searing feeling that comes with drinking too much at once, but she doesn’t expect a torrent of fire to emerge from Nobunaga’s mouth, dissipating quickly into smoke, Nobunaga coughing incessantly.

“Yeah!” Nobunaga declares, slapping her splayed palms down on either side of the bottle. “I felt that!”

“Did you really have to do that?” Okita asks, frowning at her.

“You’re the one who didn’t believe it was bottomless. Ha!” Nobunaga grins toothily up at Okita, swaying back and forth. “Well now whaddya think of that?”

“I think you only got away with doing that because of your curse,” says Okita. “There’s no way someone as small as you could handle that much sake in real life.”

“Mhm? I bet you’re just saying that because you— can’t— beat— me.” Nobunaga slumps forward, arms tucked beneath her chin, still rocking gently from side to side.

“What? Why would I want to do that?”

“Okita got beaten by Nobunagaaa,” Nobunaga sings. “Okita’s a lightweiiight.”

“Oh, that does it.” Okita plops herself down by Nobunaga, reaching for the sake. “If I last longer than you, will you shut up?”

“You gotta swallow all of it too,” Nobunaga snickers to a roll of Okita’s eyes.

“And what else?”

“Hmmm… I’ll do one thing you say. Sound fair?”

“Prepare to grovel at my feet, Nobunaga.”

“You won’t beat me, but you can try.” Nobunaga’s smile becomes a smug, tight-lipped smirk. Okita throws one more glance at her before tilting her head back and lifting the bottle to her lips. She doesn’t have time to register more than a quick pang of regret before the sake floods her senses, drowning out any other thoughts that might’ve been forming. How long had Nobunaga gone? Half a minute? Why would someone like Nobunaga even want a skull cup when she could just knock back a couple bottles in seconds? It would be fitting for someone as dismissive of decorum as her.

“Ten, eleven…” Nobunaga’s counting, slamming her fist down in time with the passing seconds. Thirty-five, that’s what Okita tells herself she’ll hold out for. Even if she fails, coming in comparatively close to Nobunaga would send her a similar message.

She doesn’t even make it to twenty. Okita manages to get her mouth closed around half of it; the rest goes spilling out in a wave across the table and her kimono and Nobunaga’s cloak, drenching everything. Nobunaga keels onto her side, laughing hysterically, not even noticing when Okita flicks the mouth of the bottle at her out of spite.

“Hahaha!” she roars, flailing her hands in the air. “I knew it! I win!”

“You cheated,” Okita mumbles, also sinking down against her side. Already, she’s feeling a sort of fuzziness settle over her. Maybe the sake in this realm is different, too?

“Lightweight, lightweight,” Nobunaga keeps chanting.

Okita groans and presses a palm to her head. She’ll regret this in the morning, for sure. She regrets it more even now: Nobunaga’s jabbering fills her head with the same buzz as the calls of cicadas, and she can’t manage a solid thought through it.

“— goes to show that competence on the battlefield doesn’t mean shit when it comes to drinking! Ah, you have to know of Kenshin? Uesugi Kenshin? He could hold his alcohol fine, _and_ he was scary! And then he died on the toilet!”

There really is nothing worse than a chatty drunk. Except, maybe, for the ones who keep starting fights whenever they go out to drink at the taverns. Okita groans, already recalling the damage: busted furniture, shattered earthenware. The worst had been Serizawa. He’d wrecked a whole restaurant— no wonder Kondo had been so happy to get rid of him.

Nobunaga still won’t shut up.

Okita throws a quick prayer to all the gods above, if they can even see this realm, to make her fall the fuck asleep already.

But somehow, even drunk and talking incessantly, Nobunaga’s voice is pleasant to listen to. Okita can’t discern any meaning from it, but that’s alright. If anything, that makes it a bit easier to handle. The warm haze of drunkenness has never quite felt this comfortable. Maybe it’s the quality of the sake. Maybe it’s the knowledge that there won’t be a fight she’ll need to be sober to break up, or else have Hijikata try and do so and end up rampaging himself.

“Nobunaga.” Okita tries to speak her name; it comes out distorted. “Nobuna— ugh. Mm. Nobu.”

“Yeah?”

“I swear, if you don’t stop talking, I’ll cut you.”

“Oh? But isn’t it a host’s job to entertain their guests?”

“You’re not entertaining me,” Okita drawls. “You’re a fucking nuisance.”

“Well sor-ry,” Nobunaga snickers. “You’re free to go back down to your room and sleep there, you know.”

“You know what?” Okita reaches blindly around, feeling for the edge of the table to grab on to. “Maybe… maybe I will.” Okita fights her way to her feet, stumbling around in a tight circle. The door— where’s that again?

“Hey!” Nobunaga swats at Okita’s ankle, her leg planted firmly on Nobunaga’s back. “Get off me!”

“I told you you’d end up groveling.”

“I’m not groveling! Ah, just stay here, then! If you’re too drunk to realize you’re stepping on me then you’ll definitely break your neck going down the stairs, and then I’ll have to live with that on my conscience!”

“You have a conscience?”

“Contrary to what you think— ”

“Nobu.” Okita tries to shake her head. Her legs give out instead. She comes down in a heap on top of Nobunaga, eliciting an anguished squeak. Ha, she’s knocked the air out of Nobunaga; good. “Hm. You know you’re pretty soft?”

“Okitaaaa.” Nobunaga pushes at her shoulder, fails to budge her. “Ow…”

“You said I could stay here.” Okita shifts herself onto her side, nestling her cheek into the fabric of Nobunaga’s coat. “That means you’re my pillow.”

“How does that even make sense?”

“If you turn back into a skeleton like this, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Ah— well, that’s…” Nobunaga falls silent. She must be out of breath again. Through bleary eyes, Okita registers the redness of Nobunaga’s cheeks. A similar heat radiates from hers: the sake’s really kicking in, now. Okita groans and presses her face into Nobunaga’s coat. It smells like soot and gunpowder— the acrid stench of battle, and yet somehow made homely. “That’s up to you, you know,” Nobunaga says.

“Mm.” Okita throws an arm over Nobunaga’s stomach. No, that won’t do, she’s too small. Not enough space for Okita to move her head around. Squeezing her eyes shut, Okita tries to focus. The growing throbbing in her head and Nobunaga’s incessant drone make it hard for her to, but she manages. Nobunaga twists beneath her; substance fills the space between Okita’s arms, and even the tickle of wayward hair straying across Okita’s nose doesn’t bother her so much.

“Ah?” Nobunaga blinks, glancing down at herself. “Huh- huh?!”

“Mhm,” Okita sighs. “Much better.”

“Hey— hey, wait. You can’t just do this, Okita!”

“You said it was up to me,” replies Okita. “So I went with something better.”

“Better? Better?! What’re you implying?” Nobunaga tries to extricate her arms from Okita’s grasp, in part to push her off, in part to try and brush away the tangle of hair that’s flung itself from her scalp in every direction. “Just because I take on whatever form comes to your mind, doesn’t mean you can do this to me!”

“Hush,” Okita tells her. “You’ve got more surface area this way. And you’re more pillowlike. I’ll put you back to normal later.”

“Okita? You know how heavy you are too, right? Hey, I need to sleep, too! Okita!”

Nobunaga’s hands cup Okita’s shoulders, trying to push her off. In this form she’s given them, the one she’d associated with Kippoushi, her hands are broader, rougher. Kippoushi would have been her childhood name, she thinks. This must have been the Nobunaga that didn’t yet have the luxury of commanding from the backlines; Nobunaga would’ve been out on the field with her men, wielding a rifle just as any of them. The callouses she feels against her shoulderblades tell her that she’s right.

“Okitaaaaaa…”

Nobunaga’s still trying to bargain with her, but Okita pays her no mind. The sound of her voice has lost all distinction. It resonates in her ears like the bubbling of water over the rocks in Kyoto’s rivers. The thumping beneath her ear submerges it even deeper: Nobunaga’s heartbeat, Okita thinks blearily. Rapid yet steady; temptingly close to being reassuring.

And warm: Nobunaga’s warm. Okita hadn’t ever considered that this might be a result of keeping so much fire pent up in a human body. She’s warm like a hot spring, like a summer day in Kyoto with none of the humidity, like the kotatsu her family had back in Edo. So warm— so familiar.

Nobunaga’s voice tapers. She’s stopped speaking, or Okita’s drowsiness is beginning to cut her off from the world. Either is fine.

Okita is descending into a grey and dreamless void. She knows it to be separate from everything, even this realm. Like this realm. Once she enters it, the only things that will pursue her are the creations of her idle mind. In a state like this, they might be anything. They might be the Kondo of younger years; they might be Mitsu, the sister she’d left behind in Edo.

Beneath her, Nobunaga’s chest vibrates: the hum of song, drifting into the air and lulling Okita further into the reaches of sleep. The quavering melody sinks deep into Okita’s bones, coming to rest beside the sake, the gentle lilt of Nobunaga’s voice intoxicating in its own way. _A man’s life is but fifty years…_

Okita never remembers the dreams that come after a night of drinking. Only her subconscious will register the answer. Only her subconscious will acknowledge the present heat beneath her arms, the puffs of warm breath that tousle her hair. The form her dreams take is Nobunaga’s. Which form is not apparent, nor is it relevant, save for when Nobunaga shrinks in size in the early hours of the morning, and Okita, missing her heat, curls even more tightly around her to make up for it.

* * *

The passage from heavy, sake-induced sleep back into the waking world never gets easier, even with a not-so-human body. Nobunaga groans, flailing at the air above her chest. She’s used to the sound of her heartbeat rattling around in her skull, but this weight on her body is a new one. Her fingers brush something soft and warm; something stirs against her chest: no, that’s not the sake at all. That’s Okita.

Nobunaga tries to open her eyes, finds her eyelids uncooperative. She wrenches one up— success; she’ll take it. Gone is the jumbled tangle of her hair from the night before: she’s in her usual human body, and she’s pinned under Okita. Okita doesn’t look like she’s moved from the night before. She’s still sprawled out over the floor, arms tucked one on either side of Nobunaga, cheek pressed into the shallow depression between her chest and stomach.

Laying flat on her back, Nobunaga lets her arms fall, landing flat and perpendicular on either side of her. That hadn’t been a pleasant, drunken dream after all. It had been real: the playful side of Okita she’d never gotten to see before; the softness of Okita’s arms around her. How long had it been since anyone had touched Nobunaga, much less like this?

The answer is far too long, but Nobunaga isn’t content with merely that. She knows she shouldn’t pursue this line of thought any further; she does anyway. There’s no better time to do so than drunk, but barring that, the fogginess of her first few waking thoughts seems the next safest place. She’s just distanced enough from sobriety that she might not regret what she thinks, at least not so much.

Okita, who hardly drinks, who thinks only of fighting, whose path is so short that she’s even planned out her death. She would hardly be the type to have someone to return to in Kyoto. If anything, how Okita’s splayed out over her is the proof. Really, Okita’s lucky she’s not a drooler. That would get her thrown off Nobunaga, immense amounts of fondness or not.

If only it were mere fondness. Nobunaga knows herself well, knows what she’d felt for her old retainers even so far removed from when she’d known them. _That_ was fondness; what she holds for Okita is something else, a dangerous moreness. Unthinkingly, Nobunaga reaches down: her fingers trail through the ends of Okita’s hair, curl flaxen strands between her knuckles. Nobunaga can’t recall ever seeing her so unguarded. She’d seen Okita sleep, but there was a certain strain to whatever rest Okita could find in the clutches of sickness. This is Okita at peace: not dreaming of fighting or home, or of anything at all. This is an Okita that could have been.

Okita stirs: Nobunaga’s fingers fly back, and Okita settles again, simply turning her head so her other cheek occupies a cool patch of Nobunaga’s coat. Nobunaga closes her eyes, swallows down a sigh. She’d faltered; she doesn’t know what she would’ve done if Okita had woken up just then. For all the front and show that she puts on, Nobunaga still makes mistakes. She’s reckless, she’s selfish; she’s painfully human.

And she isn’t. She’s lived long beyond the fifty years she’d always used to sing about. She’s at least ten generations removed from the time she’d known, the men she’d fought beside, anyone she could have said she loved. Her era is long gone: she has no right to leave her mark upon it, even if it’s something as simple as trying to draw Okita closer to herself.

In less than three months, the passage will open again, and Okita will leave. No longer shrouded by a realm of the unexpected, her illness might make its move at last— or it might not. Nobunaga would like to think that anyone she’d allow herself to get this close to wouldn’t fall in line with the whims of fate so easily.

Nobunaga has made no sound, and yet something rouses Okita anyway: the heaviness of her breath, strained beneath Okita’s weight and her own restrained sighs. Nobunaga’s eyes snap shut, and she wills herself to stay still: feigning sleep is something she was never used to, not even before, much less with someone’s palms digging into her sides.

Okita lets out a quiet hum, lifts her head off Nobunaga’s chest. Nobunaga hears the shifting of fabric, the whisper of a yawn traveling to and fro: Okita is taking in the room, and inevitably, who she’s woken up beside.

“Mm…” Okita sighs. There’s a creaking of wood, the slightest shifting of it beneath Nobunaga’s body. Okita’s moving around, but not for long. She settles in a position she likes quickly enough and draws her legs beneath her, only to groan and start to lay back down. That would be the headache hitting; that much is expected.

Something brushes the lapels of Nobunaga’s coat. Nobunaga nearly starts, if only on instinct: there’s no reason anything should come near her throat, nor any reason she should allow it in her human form, but there is: it’s Okita. Okita’s fingers drift up, finding the dip of Nobunaga’s shoulders. A moment later, she’s laying back down: her head settles beneath Nobunaga’s breast, close enough for Nobunaga to wonder if Okita can hear the roaring in her chest. Her heart rattles against her ribs; her fire twists with painful impatience.

And Nobunaga stays still. Even when Okita settles in place, returning to the depths of sleep; even when a whisper of _Nobu_ escapes her burgeoning dream and out into the open. It would be so easy: the lift of a hand, the touch of fingers to Okita’s cheek. She might be receptive to it. She certainly wouldn’t have the experience to know what to do with it. It would be so easy— it would be a mistake that Nobunaga would never be free of. To feel Okita against her, the warmth of her body and the movement of her breath, is more than Nobunaga could ask for. If the rest of what she yearns for exists only in her mind, then Nobunaga will accept that: it’s no different than the existence she’s led for so long, and even this bitterness will not outlast the memories she’ll cling to, nor the dreams to follow even once those have long faded.

* * *

Though it seems this forest and everything in it is standing still, the world lurches on around them. The true onset of spring brings rain with it, an incessant barrage of dampness covering both earth and sky. Even in the moments when the clouds break and the sun shines through, it doesn’t stop raining.

The weather isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Something else had, after that night. Okita can’t put a finger on it. She’d thought it might be the moisture in the air making Nobunaga antsy, but that can’t be it. Nobunaga doesn’t shy from storms or sitting out beneath them; if anything, she welcomes the cooling rain on her skin. So it’s something else.

Okita shivers, stifling a cough. In this rain, practicing out in the courtyard is just asking to catch a cold again. That had been Nobunaga’s worry. “Don’t stay out in the rain for too long,” she’d said. “Unless you’ve taken a liking to having my full attention.” Okita had scoffed at that, and left; Nobunaga hasn’t reminded her since. Okita doesn’t think it odd that Nobunaga said that, just a little overbearing. She’s grown to understand, if not accept, Nobunaga’s brand of caring. Still, she comes down here every day: if not to practice, then to sit with her katana balanced over her knees, looking out at the overgrown trees.

How odd it is, to know that in just a few months, she’ll be heading home. For some reason, Okita doesn’t feel the same anxious excitement that had haunted her months ago. What she feels now, if anything, is something like melancholy. That shouldn’t be the case. Okita should be eager to go back to Kyoto, and yet this feeling refuses to be shaken. Her sightless gaze drifts aimlessly across the courtyard, shimmering like a mirage in the heavy rain. Okita knows why this is; the only question she cannot answer is what she fears more: Kondo’s questions and Hijikata’s scrutiny, or returning to find nothing but ghosts where her life had once been.

The floorboards behind Okita creak, announcing Nobunaga’s presence. “You’ve been out here a while,” Nobunaga says, walking to stand beside Okita. Her tone is one of idle curiosity, nothing more. One of the things Okita’s learned about Nobunaga: she does not judge, not for things as trivial as this.

“I’ve been thinking,” Okita confesses to her.

“Oh?” Nobunaga crouches down, kicking her feet out over the side of the walkway and settling in next to Okita. “You’ve picked a good place to do it. The view’s pretty good here when it rains, hm?”

She must mean the makeshift river running through the courtyard. Okita hadn’t noticed it until now: she’d thought it was simply some decorative stone arrangement, and put it out of her mind. “It’s nice,” Okita says. “Did it come with the place?”

“I made it myself,” Nobunaga tells her. “I think sometime during my first fifty years here. That was back when I still cut back the bamboo more than once a year, ha— it took me a week out here to get it just the way I wanted. It goes under the walkways and comes out at the gates: so it’s not trapped in here with me, you see?”

“You put a lot of thought into it, didn’t you?”

“I did! Well, it couldn’t be helped; I didn’t have anything else to do. But enough about me, what’s bothering you?”

“I never said anything was bothering me,” Okita says. Nobunaga snorts, a hint of a laugh slipping past her grin.

“I don’t need you to tell me to know something’s up.” Nobunaga’s legs begin to swing back and forth, one of the little tells that means she’s thinking seriously. “What is it?”

“I…” Okita tugs her lip between her teeth, fiddles with the tassels on her scabbard. She doesn’t know where she might start. Everything feels compounded and combined; she’d come out here to get some air and some distance from the heat of Nobunaga’s room, and found herself thinking of home. “I don’t know if I’m ready to go back,” Okita says at last. She expects Nobunaga to say something: a sharp jab at Okita or the Shinsengumi. Nobunaga’s silent. She keeps her eyes trained on Okita— focused, inquisitive. “Maybe… maybe it’s been so long that they’ll have written me off as dead or deserted. Or, what if there was a fight that I wasn’t there for? Or if someone succeeded in setting Kyoto on fire, or— ”

“Okita.” Now Nobunaga cuts her off— gently, but firmly. Nobunaga’s hand rests on the end of Okita’s scabbard, nowhere close to Okita’s. It gets her point across. Okita goes quiet, waiting for Nobunaga to continue: “You’re overthinking this. We talked about this when you got here before. Remember?”

“It’s different,” protests Okita. “I’ve been gone too long. Things were changing even before I came looking for you. Kondo said we needed more men— Hijikata said there was trouble in the southern provinces— ”

“Okita…”

“I don’t know if there’s a place for me to go back to,” Okita mumbles. Her hands shake around her katana: her world, her way of life. “What if I get back and it’s all over? What if we lost? There’d be no one to take me in. And if we won, if I show my face again, everyone will think I’m a coward who ran and only came back once we’d beaten the enemy. Either way, I’ll lose. And even then, I…” Okita shakes her head stiffly, taking a sharp breath. “I shouldn’t be saying this to you,” she says. “I shouldn’t be saying this at all.”

“But you have to,” Nobunaga tells her. “You shouldn’t have to keep this all in. And who better to tell? It’s not like I can go running out and shouting your secrets to the whole world.”

“I shouldn’t think of losing,” Okita says. “I’ve already accepted defeat if I do.”

“Sometimes you have to, to win the bigger war.” Nobunaga hums and shifts her weight, her legs slowing, going still. “I’d know that myself. Even if things are different when you return, that doesn’t mean the end for you. You’ll just have to ask yourself what place you want to have in the world you return to. As long as you have the confidence to go through with it, you’ll do just fine.”

Nobunaga pauses, the breath she’d taken hanging in her lungs. Okita’s heard it: she keeps looking, expectantly, at Nobunaga. There’s no point in holding herself back, Nobunaga thinks. She’d never been the kind to keep her thoughts to herself; why start now? If anything, the rift she might make in overstepping her bounds might be the very thing she needs. “If it’s worth anything, I think you’ll be okay. You’re strong enough, Okita. You just don’t let yourself see it.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” Okita tugs her sword closer to her chest, all but out of Nobunaga’s grasp. Nobunaga’s fingertips rest delicately on the lacquered wood, nearly slipping off. “You don’t know what the world is like aside from what I’ve told you. You don’t have to go out there and face anyone you know.”

“No, I don’t,” Nobunaga says. “But if I had to, I know I’d be alright. Okita— your thing is you always want someone to tell you that you’re doing what’s right. That’s what’s holding you back. You want someone to tell you what to do and tell you you’ve done a good job with it. I get it— it’s easier. You don’t have to spend your nights wondering if you’ve made the right choices, if things could’ve gone differently. But do that long enough, and you’ll lose sight of what you want for yourself. You’ll think something abstract like honor is the most important thing to you. And if you’d just have more faith in yourself, I know you’d be okay.”

“Is that what you did?” Okita’s jaw juts to the side, baring her teeth to scrape against her lips. “It didn’t do you much good, did it? You’re stuck here. What’s that say about you?”

“I never said I was perfect.” Nobunaga chuckles, lets her hand fall away from Okita’s sword. Her fingers trail across the space between them, following the pattern of the wooden grain. “I know I made plenty of mistakes. Maybe this was one of them. Maybe I’m not done making my mistakes, either. What I did back then, though, that was for everyone’s sake. I burned thousands of people alive and killed tens of thousands more, so that hundreds of thousands could live in a future where families didn’t have to tear themselves apart fighting.”

“And now everyone thinks of you as a monster,” Okita retorts. “There’s rebels trying to overthrow the shogun, and you’re stuck in here.”

“Are you saying that I should regret what I did?” Nobunaga asks her. Okita doesn’t reply: just stares at her, steely-eyed, daring Nobunaga to answer her. “I don’t. I knew, even in my time, that nothing could last forever. Not the war I was born into, not the peace I hoped I would make. But as long as something better came out of all that fighting, I told myself I’d accept that.” Nobunaga taps her fist against her hip emphatically, a muffled thump that reverberates into the sky, taken up as rolling thunder. “So what’s something you’d be satisfied with, Okita?”

The rain keeps pouring. The river has begun to overflow at its edges. Nobunaga hadn’t made it with three weeks of rain in mind. Okita keeps staring at it, watches silvery fingers creep towards the bamboo thickets and vanish into them. She doesn’t know. She does, but it’s not an answer Nobunaga would accept; deep down, she knows it’s just something she says to keep herself appeased, too. _Dying in combat_ is not something to be satisfied with, but resigned to— it’s the peace she’d made with herself the first time she took up an iron sword and felt its weight against her palms.

“Well…” Nobunaga gets up; the loud creaking of the floorboards under her pierces through Okita’s thoughts. “I guess if you decide that you want a place to return to, I’ll always be here, you know?” She glances down at Okita, grinning that full-on smile that Okita’s begun to feel the slightest hint of growing warmth for. “But I know you’re not the type to do that. Once you leave, you’ll be gone for good, won’t you?”

“I— ” Okita has to glance away. She doesn’t know if it was her imagination, or if that slight crack she’d seen in Nobunaga’s expression had been real. She doesn’t want to think of it. If even Nobunaga is having doubts now, then there’s really no hope for herself. “Yes,” she agrees, speaking past the vortex of emotions knotting tight in her throat. Even if she’d wanted to say otherwise, she won’t dare to even consider the alternative. She’d known she was going to leave from the moment Nobunaga told her she could; wishing that Nobunaga could accompany her beyond the edge of the forest is foolishness at its extreme.

“I thought so.” Okita doesn’t look up— had she done so, she would’ve seen the softening at the corners of Nobunaga’s eyes, the gleam of rain briefly overtaking her gaze. “Well, I’m sorry I intruded on you like this. I’ll give you some space to think— ”

“Don’t,” Okita says suddenly. “Stay here. With me.”

The words are clumsy, a half-formed thought that forced its way out into the open. It would be like Nobunaga to laugh, to say something witty, for Okita to want to shove her so she lands face-first in the gravel of the courtyard. Only, Nobunaga is silent. She simply turns back around, tucking her legs beneath her and sitting down by Okita.

Okita doesn’t say anything else, either. She keeps her gaze fixed on the rain. She’s sure Nobunaga is doing the same. Looking anywhere else right now would be dangerous. The rain, the clouds, the sky— that’s all safe. They’re the same both here and in Kyoto. They’ve been the same since Nobunaga’s time, and will be even after they’re both long gone.

Something wells up in Okita’s throat: heat, a cough, a tremor. It doesn’t quite emerge fully: Okita sputters, letting it out with a shake of her head. It’s not the start of anything big, but Nobunaga moves closer anyway. When she extends her arm, draping the edge of her cloak over Okita’s far shoulder, Okita doesn’t protest. It’s just Nobunaga being Nobunaga. It’s just their warmth drifting together and mingling beneath its cover, refusing to slip out into the chilling rain, under which Nobunaga’s river has begun to overtake the courtyard.

* * *

Okita doesn’t feel her sickness creeping up on her again. One day, she’s sitting in the courtyard watching the rain with Nobunaga; the next, the unceasing rumble of her coughing drowns out the distant call of the thunder. When Okita’s too weak to leave her futon, it’s Nobunaga who takes up the motions of brewing tea and making broth as naturally as breathing, as if she’d never missed a day. Okita doesn’t thank her for it; she knows Nobunaga wouldn’t allow her to, would shrug it off as an act of duty. She does, anyway— for finally making palatable tea, for showing some restraint and knowing when not to add her heat to the stickiness in the air.

All this, Nobunaga bears indulgently. Okita needs an outlet; Nobunaga is happy to be it. She prefers this Okita who launches verbal barbs to the one who stares morosely at the unrelenting rain. What she doesn’t, couldn’t know, is that Okita has merely changed what it is she’s staring at. Nobunaga doesn’t know of the eyes that watch her every move when her back is turned, that the scratchy dryness of Okita’s throat is only in part because of her illness.

Something lingers in the air beyond the promise of the approaching summer. It might have to do with Nobunaga. It might have something to do with the way Okita’s fingers curl around the tea that Nobunaga passes her, or the desire that’s since gone unspoken since that day in the courtyard, that Okita doesn’t want Nobunaga to wander too far. It might be what brings Okita into waking with Nobunaga’s name on her lips and an afterimage of Nobunaga against her eyes, fading in the morning light. In those unremembered dreams, Nobunaga is always close. That’s all Okita can remember— it’s best that’s all she remembers.

It’s because Nobunaga is all the company she has, Okita tells herself. Still, she finds herself drawn to Nobunaga, but only when she isn’t looking. Okita doesn’t dare chance their eyes meeting when she’s like this. Nobunaga has already seen so much in her. If Okita Souji could be said to fear one thing, it would be that: Nobunaga peering into her soul, as she does so easily, and extracting into the world what Okita could not bear to hear spoken.

It’s true that Okita’s grown to enjoy Nobunaga’s company. Perhaps it was out of necessity. Eight months by herself would’ve driven her to some edge of insanity. It’s no small wonder that Nobunaga’s lasted nearly three hundred years in here. It’s that, Okita tries to believe. They’re two souls who latched onto each other for no other reason than they’d both been lonely.

If only that were the case. Okita knows well enough what camaraderie feels like: this isn’t it. What she feels seated beside Hijikata and Kondo at the table, or running beside Yamanami through Kyoto, is nothing close to this. _This_ is a new and dangerous emotion, flaring up when Nobunaga is near, refusing to be quelled even in Okita’s slumber. And when Nobunaga reaches over to feel for Okita’s temperature, or pulls the covers up to tuck her beneath them— then is when Okita knows she’s sick even beyond the fever and the blood; she’s wrong to want for anything more than to go home and back to the others, and she’s helpless before this feeling.

If only she hadn’t decided to take it upon herself to manage Hijikata’s drunken ramblings about every last novel he’d read. Okita groans, lifting a hand and covering her face with it. Damn Hijikata. Kondo, too, for sending her here, but at least he doesn’t bear the guilt of having filled Okita’s mind with the plots of a hundred romance novels.

“Okita?” Nobunaga scoots over from her place by the wall, fingers tapping at the back of Okita’s hand. “You feeling okay? Hey, let me take your temperature again.”

“I’m fine, Nobu,” she mumbles. “Just thought of something I didn’t want to.”

“Oh.” Nobunaga goes quiet; she seems to be digesting this information. Then— “Are you having trouble sleeping?”

“I’m fine,” Okita says immediately. She hears Nobunaga grunt, acknowledging her reply. Nobunaga moves off again, taking her place against the distant wall, and there’s the knife-twist stabbing in Okita’s chest again. It’s like a guilty conscience, but worse: the only one who suffers from the wrong that Okita’s doing here is herself.

Nobunaga settles against the far wall: her cape scrapes and shifts against the wood, and then the room goes silent once again. What would Nobunaga say, if she could hear Okita’s thoughts right now? _Well, what do you want to do?_ , probably; _what would you be happy with_? She knows Nobunaga well enough to know that much (she wishes she could know more.)

Outside, the storm is settling down for the night, too. The rush of clouds overhead has slowed, and distant lightning illuminates the thunderheads, nearly stationary against the far horizon. They’ll be gone by the morning, and more will have come to take their place. It’ll be the same morning that Okita’s been waking to for the past few weeks (it doesn’t have to be).

All she has to do is ask, and Nobunaga will give. That, too, she knows about Nobunaga. It’s not just loneliness— at heart, past the facades and the jokes, Nobunaga is a giving person. She’d given herself over to the task of uniting the country because she’d thought it right. But she’s not like Okita; Nobunaga had surrendered herself to the course of action that seemed best to her, and Okita—

Okita had just gone with what was asked of her. Her aspirations started with her sword and ended with Kondo. Her road had ended in Kyoto even long before she’d fallen ill. Had she ever asked anything for herself? Only to be allowed to continue to fight. Only to serve as an extension of Kondo’s sword. Here, she could change that. No one would know what Okita asks of Nobunaga except herself. It would be her sole transgression, and Okita could live with it. No one would expect this secret sin of Okita’s to be mere yearning, an emotion simple for its intensity, a betrayal of nothing but the self.

(To Okita, it would be everything. She would rather it be that regret she carries with her to the grave, and not another. To die in the world outside is to die with grace and be remembered with honor. That’s not what she wants— she wants to be thought of by someone other than her brothers in arms, also bound for sudden ends. She wants to be thought of fondly— maybe even as Souji rather than Okita.)

“Nobu?” Okita calls out after her. She hears Nobunaga move: the scrape of her boots against the floor. “There’s— will you— ” Nobunaga says nothing. She’s gone completely quiet. Okita wonders if she might even be holding her breath. Several seconds pass, each one of them agonizingly long. This is a mistake. She’ll regret this once she leaves, and yet she’ll never forgive herself if she shies away now. Okita, for all her faults, refuses to give up once she’s begun something. “Stay,” she mumbles, extending an arm in Nobunaga’s direction.

She hears Nobunaga rise; she hears the path of Nobunaga’s long sigh. A weight settles atop the futon, just at its edge, and Nobunaga’s warmth with it. “One of those nights, huh?” Nobunaga says. “I get it. I’ll stay here ‘til you fall asleep, okay?”

It is. It’s not; this isn’t enough. Okita’s instinct is to snap, “Now how am I supposed to sleep like this, if you’re holding the covers down on one side?”

“Excuse me?” Nobunaga shoots back. “I’ll remind you that’s my futon you’re lying in. I could kick you out back to your room if I wanted.”

“You’d do that to a sick person?”

“I’m Oda Nobunaga! I’ve done worse things for lesser provocations!”

“Would you really do that?” Okita asks her. “Kick me out?”

Nobunaga pauses with her arms raised over her head, looking down at Okita. The grin on her face is frozen, slowly drooping into something unreadable. She seems to be studying Okita’s face, but she’s left her own unguarded. There’s something there, flickering weakly like a flame beneath the constant downpour, an uncertainty so foreign to Nobunaga that for a moment Okita wonders if she’s looking at a reflection at herself.

“No,” Nobunaga says at last. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” Okita echoes. She doesn’t know why. It just feels like the right thing to be done. That’s why, before there’s time to doubt herself, she tugs back on the sheets and bares a corner of the futon to Nobunaga. Nobunaga pauses, tilts her head and arches an eyebrow at Okita. “Well, come on. It’s your futon, isn’t it?”

“Won’t it be too warm for you?”

“It’ll be fine. Just get in already, you’re letting in all the cold,” Okita mumbles, a yawn slipping out past her exasperated sigh. “You’re the kind of warm I like, anyway.”

Nobunaga nods, sinking in beneath the sheets with a hushed, “ _Ah_.” She wriggles around a bit before settling into place, little bursts of warmth flaring out from her towards Okita. No, it looks like Okita won’t regret this when she leaves the forest: she regrets it now already. She’s grateful for Nobunaga’s heat, if only because it might explain away the flush on her cheeks. They’re far too close together. The slightest movement brings Okita’s skin brushing against Nobunaga’s. At this proximity, it’d be a wonder if Nobunaga is deaf to the maddened beating of her heart.

“Ah, that’s better— Okita?” Nobunaga moves in closer, pressing the backs of her fingers to Okita’s forehead. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’re turning red. Should I get you some water— ”

“I told you to stay, didn’t I?” Okita swats at Nobunaga’s hand, batting it away. “I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”

“Maybe you think that. You’re still kinda warm, though.” Nobunaga tugs her leg free of the futon, glancing towards the door. “I’ll get you some just in case.”

“I said I’m fine— ”

Okita’s fingers close around Nobunaga’s wrist just as she begins to rise. Nobunaga jerks in place, unsteady on her feet, swaying unevenly. For one prolonged moment, she’s just there: hovering in perfect balance over Okita. Then gravity wins out; then Nobunaga comes down hard on top of Okita, grasping for anything she could use to stop her fall and finding Okita’s shoulders.

Nobunaga’s eyes are red— a beautiful vibrant red. Past the immediate thoughts of blood, they bring to mind autumns in Kyoto, firework festivals held in Edo over the bay, the crimson scabbard of Okita’s first katana. A second later, the dark waterfall of Nobunaga’s hair drapes belatedly over them both like a curtain, shielding both their faces from the prying gaze of the world. Like silk, Okita thinks. Nobunaga’s hair is soft. She herself is soft— it hadn’t occurred to Okita to think of her like that, but it’s true. Beneath the remnant veneer of the Sengoku warlord is the person Nobunaga could have been. She could’ve been so much of something else. If only she had been born in Okita’s time—

“Ah,” Nobunaga says. Her searching gaze roams Okita’s face, understanding shifting deep within her eyes. Okita can’t help but wonder what Nobunaga’s found, what emotions she, in her loneliness, may have betrayed. She wonders what might happen if Nobunaga doesn’t move, keeps staring down at her like this: she knows she wouldn’t be the one to look away.

Nobunaga breaks the stalemate. She rolls onto her side, off of Okita, wriggling beneath the covers and tugging them up high over her shoulders. Again, her warmth begins to seep out beneath the sheets. Though she’s turned away from Okita, Okita can hear her voice clearly: “You know,” she mumbles, “you really need to figure out what it is you want, Okita.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Okita says, but Nobunaga doesn’t reply. Her breath begins to slow and even: Nobunaga’s drifting off to sleep. Okita can hear when she drops beneath its surface. The futon beside her settles a final time, and the whisper of air passing through Nobunaga’s lips becomes as steady as the pattering rain.

Slowly, Okita dares to turn onto her side. Nobunaga doesn’t stir. She’s gone— dreaming of whatever Oda Nobunaga dreams about. Okita’s hand inches across the pace between them, fingers curling in the ends of Nobunaga’s hair. It’s as soft as she’d imagined. It’s perfectly smooth. Now Okita understands why Nobunaga takes so long to bathe every day. Every day for almost three hundred years…

That could change. Their lives are meant to be spent in solitude, but that doesn’t have to be true now. This is a realm that shouldn’t exist; Nobunaga is someone who shouldn’t still be alive. Here, Okita could have what would be impossible for her to find in the world outside. She has the men of the Shinsengumi, but they’re just that, subordinates. Even Kondo and Hijikata and Yamanami, who she’s closest to, are no more than figures like brothers to her. What Nobunaga could give to her is something beyond that; and Okita sees her fingers tremble, the weight of a realization sinking into her like Nobunaga’s heat. She’s made her peace with her death. Those who Okita hopes are waiting for her in Kyoto are the men she’d meant to die with. Nobunaga is who she wants to live beside.

Anything that might happen would be ephemeral. It’d be gone as soon as Okita leaves the forest, better off forgotten. She knows she wouldn’t do that, though, and neither would Nobunaga. Too much has happened in this place for it to be so carelessly discarded. The only harm of something more would be the mark it would leave on Okita’s soul. Kondo had never committed himself to anyone; Hijikata had turned down the prospect of marriage. Their hearts remain hidden beneath the blue and white of the Shinsengumi haori. For Okita, it’s the same. She’d never considered the question of giving it to someone— but if she did, who better than a ghost who dwells in a place no one could find, keeping Okita’s heart and her memory alive even after Okita herself has long faded like the transient snow.

She could do this. It wouldn’t take much: just showing Nobunaga the last vulnerable part of her that remains. Okita’s sure Nobunaga wouldn’t hurt her. She’s been so careful with Okita; she’s already seen Okita at her weakest. A little more would cost her nothing. A little more could mean everything to her.

That night, Okita doesn’t sleep. She lays awake on her side until the breaking of the dawn lightens the stormclouds from above, patches of gold breaking through the gaps of cloud along the horizon. She keeps Nobunaga’s hair entangled in her fingers as she mulls over her thoughts. Torn between the opposing pulls of duty and emotion, she lets the feel of it against her skin anchor her to this world. She doesn’t let go, even when Nobunaga begins to stir and Okita’s mind starts to drift towards the distant clouds. She wants to be kept in this world for just a little longer— just enough for Nobunaga, in the way she does to all things she finds amusing, to make Okita hers.

* * *

When Okita wakes, the sun is long past its noon seat. The sky is clear, save for a smattering of grey at its far edges. Nobunaga is gone. She’s been gone for a while: the futon where she’d lay has mostly regained its shape, and long since cooled.

Okita stares at the empty space beside her, watching the forest move through the double balcony doors. A cool breeze sweeps over the trees, stirring up the scent of damp and muddied earth from the forest floor. Okita shifts her gaze down to her hand. It’s where she’d left it when she dozed off, exactly where Nobunaga’s hair would’ve been— maybe a little past that. She wonders what Nobunaga might’ve thought, if she’d suspect it hadn’t been unintentional, if her absence is in part because of it.

But if Nobunaga had wanted some space, she wouldn’t have let Okita know where to find her. A new crown has settled over the forest, rhythmic echoed gunshots replacing the steady song of the rain. Nobunaga’s rifle is gone from its usual place: she’s out there, in her clearing, doing what Nobunaga does best.

Okita sits up, blankets falling off her chest where they’d been tucked tightly around her. With the clearing of the air, breathing comes easier to her. She ties her obi; she shrugs on her haori, and then Okita’s off in search of Nobunaga.

The forest still shows signs of the rain that’s passed. Waterlogged branches drip puddles into leaves strewn on the ground. A thousand reflections watch from every crystalline drop hanging incomplete from the high boughs. Nobunaga’s track is clearly laid in the mud: a stream of bootprints that Okita finds herself walking in, easily overtaking Nobunaga’s shorter stride.

Nobunaga is exactly where Okita thinks she is: in the same clearing as always, shooting bits of sodden bark off the trees she hasn’t yet skinned from trunk to canopy. This time, she’s standing. Okita watches her from afar— the same motions as before, only quicker now. Nobunaga moves with the same fluidity Okita expects from herself in combat. She flicks the flash pan open, plunges a hand into her coat. It comes out with a paper cartridge and an iron ball, the former of which she tears open with her teeth. Spitting the cartridge pieces onto the floor, she primes the flash pan, then works through the rest. There goes the bullet and the rest of the gunpowder, shoved down the barrel by her scouring rod. Nobunaga lifts the rifle to her shoulder, letting her cheek rest against the stock. It’s then that her eyes flicker to the treeline, glimpse that flash of pink between the newly growing shrubs.

“Oh,” Nobunaga says, lowering her rifle. She tilts her head at Okita, a greeting smile taking to her face. “You’re up already? I expected you to sleep well into the afternoon.”

“You’re making too much of a ruckus,” Okita retorts. “This is why you got sealed away in here. You’re a regular public menace.”

Okita doesn’t know where the words came from, only that they’ve left her lips. She glances, hesitantly, at Nobunaga’s expression. Nobunaga pauses too, taken aback. It seems she doesn’t know how to react: then a wider grin blooms over her face, and her laughter takes to the sky in the absence of her rifle fire.

“I didn’t realize you could wake up with a sense of humor!” Nobunaga gestures to Okita, calling her out into the clearing. Here, the earth is dry: something to do with Nobunaga, if she had to guess. “Ah, but are you alright? I mean, should you be out here like this?”

“I’m fine,” Okita says. “No coughing. It helps that the rain’s stopped.”

“I suppose that’s true,” agrees Nobunaga. She thrusts her rifle at Okita as soon as she’s come within range, offering it to her expectantly. “Come on. I’ll teach you how to use one of these while you’re out here.”

“I don’t need to know,” protests Okita. “I’m never going to use one anyway.”

“What if your commander tells you to?” Nobunaga shakes the rifle at her with a rattle. “What if that’s the only weapon you can get your hands on?”

“Kondo and Hijikata know I don’t like rifles,” Okita says. “And if I ever lost my katana in a fight, then I might as well deserve what I have coming to me.”

“Is that so?” Nobunaga arches her neck in the direction of Okita’s hip. “Then where’s your sword right now?”

“It’s right— ” Okita’s palm swipes through empty air. Both hands pat her side; Nobunaga’s snickering at her again. Her sword isn’t there— she’d forgotten it. She’d been so intent on finding Nobunaga that she’d left it in their room.

“Mhm,” Nobunaga says knowingly. “Will you concede I have a point now?”

“If I fire it once, will you stop nagging me about it?”

“Gladly, as long as you do it right.”

“Fine.” Okita yanks the rifle from Nobunaga’s grip, only to nearly drop it. “What the hell is this?”

“You haven’t even held one before?” Nobunaga’s eyebrows knit together in pained amusement. “Here, you hold it like this, see…”

Nobunaga walks around Okita, tugging the rifle up to her shoulder. She presses the stock into the space between Okita’s arm and collarbone, guiding her hands to grip it: one at the trigger, one halfway down the length of the barrel. “That’s the basic position,” Nobunaga tells her. “You aim by aligning these bits of metal. Sometimes you have to use one eye to do it, some people use both, whatever works best for you.”

“Don’t I need to have some kind of fire to light the gunpowder?”

“You’ve got me.” Nobunaga laughs and nudges Okita’s sandals with one of her boots. “God, your stance is horrible. You really are a career swordsman.”

“And you’re a horrible teacher,” Okita mumbles beneath her breath.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Look, like this.” Nobunaga demonstrates, standing with her feet squared with her shoulders. She mimics the pose she’s had Okita take, indicating one of the trees as her target. “Don’t stick your elbow up like that. Keep it tight against your side. It’s going to kick when you fire it, so don’t hold it too tight. Ah, but don’t be afraid of it, either. It’s just a part of firing a rifle, kind of like when another sword hits against yours.”

“Alright,” Okita says. She shuffles her feet, dragging her right foot back and glancing up at Nobunaga. “Better?”

“You’re still pointing your front foot forward. Like this.” Nobunaga taps on Okita’s thigh, nudging it in line with her shoulders. “There. Now take aim, take a breath, and hold it when you’re ready to fire. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Okita nods and takes another breath, trying to recall how she’d seen others do this. She hasn’t seen Hijikata ever use his rifle; she just knows he owns one. The only reference she has is Nobunaga: feet planted, rifle braced against her shoulder, glaring stoically down the barrel. Okita lines her sights up with the tree Nobunaga had pointed to and inhales. A second later, there’s a kick against her shoulder and a pop near her ear; something whizzes into the distance, throwing up a spray of mud where it lands.

“Huh,” Nobunaga says. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much from your first try. At least you didn’t drop it, that’s good.”

“Why do you say that?” Okita asks, shaking her head and shoving the gun back at Nobunaga. “Did you drop it the first time you fired one?”

“I was younger than you when I first shot a rifle,” Nobunaga says delicately. “And shorter.”

“So you did.”

“I said no such thing.”

“That means you did.”

“You can’t talk,” Nobunaga scoffs. “You didn’t even hit the target. Now who’s the one who requires practice?”

“You’ve had a few hundred years to work on this,” Okita huffs. “That’s not fair.”

“Well, I guess that’s true.”

Nobunaga grins and takes her rifle back, lowering it until its butt rests on the ground beside her feet. That’s right, Okita thinks— Nobunaga’s been here for so long, and yet it hasn’t worn on her beyond a newfound patience she hadn’t had in life. She’ll be here after Okita leaves, and after Okita dies. She might endure far beyond anything Okita could imagine: a living memory of the samurai spirit in defiance of everything the rebels might try to erase. With a life that long, what would a handful of months be in comparison to that?

Suddenly, Okita feels as though her stomach’s dropped down to her ankles. What would be the brightest and possibly final months of her life would hardly register as a brushstroke in the story of Nobunaga’s life. It wouldn’t amount to much; only Nobunaga would ever know or speak of it.

But maybe, that’s for the better. Okita could live with herself if she walked that narrow line between this world and the other. She could live adoring Nobunaga and die with honor, and let her slippage from the memory of both words be the price she pays (and if, as she hopes, Nobunaga has any semblance of feeling for her, perhaps even that might not be the case).

“Nobu?” Okita says. Nobunaga blinks slowly, acknowledging her. Only now does Okita realize that Nobunaga’s been staring at her all this time, waiting for her to speak. “You said— early on, when I just got here, you said that nothing we do in this place will matter. Do you remember that?”

“I do.” Nobunaga nods slightly, eyes never leaving Okita’s. “I said that nothing here would change what goes on outside.”

“I— ” Okita teeters on a blade’s-edge. Self-indulgence is something entirely foreign to her. She knows nothing of what it would or should feel like; she’s staring down a cliff with no bottom in sight, and wavering at the plunge. “You know you’re really short, right?” she mumbles. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. It’s inconvenient, really— she’s one of the shortest members of the Shinsengumi, so accounting for someone smaller than her is something she’s rarely had to think of.

“No, people in your time are just taller,” Nobunaga fires back. “I’ve seen the people who come through. They— ”

“Don’t. Talk about anyone else.”

“Well, what else do you want me to say? Here.” Nobunaga plants her rifle in front of her, anchoring in between her legs, using it to prop herself up on her tiptoes. “Does this make you happier?”

“I… Nobunaga, you’re really…”

“Yeah?” Nobunaga prompts her. “Unbearable? Ridiculous? What’d you call me earlier, a public m— ”

Nobunaga falls quiet, eyes widening slightly at the hand that’s come to rest on her cheek. Surely now someone as astute as her must see right through Okita. She has to have noticed the shine in Okita’s eyes, the shallowness of her breath. Nobunaga reaches up, fingers curling around Okita’s wrist. Their warmth echoes Okita’s rapid-fire pulse. “Okita?” she says, running her thumb over Okita’s knuckles.

“I— ” Okita begins, and that’s when Nobunaga’s rifle loses its hold on the dry and cracked earth. It slides to the side; Nobunaga, thrown off balance, begins to pitch back. Instinctively, Okita pulls on her. Nobunaga’s weight thumps against her chest, and it feels as though something’s been knocked loose inside Okita: not her sickness, not anything like it, but something warm and overwhelming. It might even be Nobunaga’s fire— and that’s all the time Okita has to think. The impulse races through her. If she’s to act, it must be now; if she hesitates, she knows she won’t ever have the courage for a second opportunity.

Okita’s palm fumbles with Nobunaga’s face. Nobunaga, still wobbly, teeters in Okita’s arms. Guided by Okita’s fingers, she angles her chin up. At last— contact. The sweet brushing of Nobunaga’s lips over Okita’s. It’s gentle and slow, it’s nothing like Okita had imagined. She’d carried the unspoken hope that Nobunaga might be the one to bridge this gap, and only given up on it the night before. Now she acts, for the first time, solely for her own desires. Her other hand curls clumsily around Nobunaga’s waist. Okita kisses Nobunaga as though she’s air and Okita is on the verge of breathing her last.

Nobunaga, still slumped in Okita’s arms and dangling from her shoulders, breathes out a long sigh. That’s the flip side of having lived so long. A lack of anyone to talk to stretches years out into eternities. To be deprived of touch as well, much less that of another, must make this feel like the first kiss Nobunaga’s ever had were it not for the memories of a life long gone still swimming in her mind.

But Nobunaga doesn’t think of this. Her thoughts are only of Okita: the way Nobunaga’s hand wraps around her back and into her hair to mellow out her sawing breaths, and Okita slowly dipping lower to settle Nobunaga on firm ground. She lets Okita be the one to dictate when they break apart. It’s not for a while— Okita seems intent on drinking in Nobunaga like this will be their one and only moment together, like she’s seeking a reprieve from the wave of doubt they both know will come in its wake.

Nobunaga allows this: when it comes to Okita, Nobunaga has nothing but patience. She lets her eyes slide shut as she savors the warmth of another’s mouth on hers. She lets the feeling sink into her, down to her very soul, more cleansing and refreshing than any amount of rain. This is one of the things she’d missed most; this is the one thing she’d thought she could never have again.

Okita pulls back, but only slightly, just enough to take a breath of air. Her gaze holds Nobunaga’s steady, all at once more confident and more unsure than Nobunaga’s ever seen her. Nobunaga hears her breath, but Okita doesn’t speak. It would seem she’s at a loss for words, can’t think of anything she might say.

Nobunaga says, “So what brought that on?” It’s not a loaded question, but genuinely curious. She has to stifle a laugh at the blush creeping up Okita’s cheekbones, the flustered double blink that Nobunaga hasn’t realized is a tic of Okita’s until this moment.

“I— I, well, you… you matter. I want you to matter.” Okita stumbles over the words, hoping Nobunaga can grasp the meaning in them. She’s still not able to say it, but she can dance around it: the simple admission of, _I want you_.

“Huh,” Nobunaga smirks. “You’ve got strange taste in partners, Okita. A flaming skeleton, really?”

“Stop that,” Okita whines, knocking her forehead against Nobunaga’s. Nobunaga winces, rubbing the crown of her head. “You know it’s not just that. You’re more than that. And— and you’ve made me see more in myself, too. Out there, I’m a samurai with the Shinsengumi. In here, I can be…”

“Anything you want,” Nobunaga finishes for her. The unspoken words hang heavy in the air between them: _you could be an Okita who chooses to stay here. You could be my lover for the rest of the time you have._

“I— I can’t say that I wish I could stay,” Okita whispers. “That’s going too far. I’d break my oath if I said that. But, but I can still enjoy the time I have left here. Right?”

Nobunaga smiles at Okita— broadly, brightly, like the sun. She smiles like she hasn’t remembered since the days she sat with her retainers and drank to the promise of war. “Ah, Okita,” she says. “I’ve really done a number on you, haven’t I? That sounds more like something I’d say myself— ”

“And I wish I’d been an influence on you, so you’d shut up.”

“Still going on about that?” Nobunaga murmurs. “You know…”

Her fingers spin circles in the tails of Okita’s scarf. A light tug is all the prompting Okita needs. She leans down again and kisses Nobunaga as if to breathe life into the fire in her chest. She lets its heat travel back into her, flowing through her blood. It burns; even now, having accepted this, it feels almost unbearable. But that’s why Nobunaga’s here: so she doesn’t have to face it alone. Neither of them are alone anymore. Their future has shifted from the inevitable, this new and mutual path blazed by the heat of their kiss. 

* * *

There are no cherry blossom trees in the forest that Okita’s seen, and yet their petals come flooding in on the wind, filling the divot in the courtyard where Nobunaga’s river has finally run dry. They’re chased to the ground by slashes of Okita’s sword, twisting in time Okita’s body moving across the gravel, a dance of pink and silver and pale gold.

On sunny days like this one, Nobunaga’s to be found either on the balcony of her room or down in the courtyard watching Okita. In spite of their newfound closeness, neither of their routines have changed. Okita imagines it’s to give her space— she’d said, on their first night burrowing beneath the covers together, arm draped over Okita’s waist, that she’d had everything she could want from romance, and that this was Okita’s to shape.

In a sense, Okita’s grateful for this semblance of distance. It gives her time to think, to dwell upon those thoughts that, rightfully, should never have occurred to anyone alive. How does one deal with loving and being loved by Nobunaga? How does one begin to reconcile a relationship with someone who should be long dead?

(In fleeting moments of weakness, Okita is grateful it’s Nobunaga who she’d fallen for. A woman who should be dead, and one who will be soon— they’re like two links at opposite ends of a chain, so far apart in likeness, yet still connected. For Okita to love someone is to afflict them with the same curse that eats away at her, an unseen countdown wearing upon her soul. She’s grateful that it’s Nobunaga who loves her; it could only ever have been Nobunaga. No one else could have accepted Okita like this, or if they had, Okita would’ve refused them in the name of her sudden and coming death.)

Even now, sitting at the edge of the courtyard, Nobunaga is still so far away. The gleam in her eyes as she watches Okita practice is one of bygone seasons and burnt-out fires. Perhaps Okita, with her freer step and lightened limbs, reminds her of someone else. Or maybe Nobunaga’s thinking, like her— of the future drawing closer, or else the distracting memories of nights spent murmuring to each other in low firelight radiating from lanterns and the hearth, the taste of iron upon her lips that Okita had never imagined she’d think of as sweet.

Okita lowers her blade, finishing a turn with a slackening of her stance. One set, done. From the other side of the courtyard, the crunch of gravel. Nobunaga’s been waiting for her to finish. Nobunaga approaches slowly, hands deep in the pockets of her coat, appraising Okita even from afar.

“You’re looking better,” Nobunaga tells her. “Something about the way you swing your sword.”

“Really?” asks Okita. “You think so?”

“I’ve watched you enough times to tell,” Nobunaga says with a chuckle. “Or we could spar again, and see if anything’s really changed.”

“That wouldn’t do anything but prove you haven’t been practicing your swordsmanship.”

“And if I challenged you to a shooting match, you wouldn’t even be able to hit the target.”

A giggle escapes past Okita’s hand into the air. The smile she refuses to let Nobunaga see shines through in the brightness in her eyes, not quite fully faded when Nobunaga tugs Okita’s wrist away to press her lips to Okita’s mouth instead. Okita sighs, presses herself into Nobunaga, inviting her touch. Instead, Nobunaga pulls away: “Hey,” she says, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“You’ve only got like, two months left here. Is there anything you wanted to do?”

Nobunaga stares up at Okita with earnest crimson. They both know the words that will never be spoken between them for the weight they carry: _before it’s too late_ , Nobunaga means to ask.

“In here?” Okita says. “I… not really. Most of what I miss is from the outside. I really miss eating dango. Oh, and I wish I’d brought more than one set of clothes.”

“You know you could always borrow mine, right? I’ve told you that.”

“And your clothes are way too small for me!” Okita gestures at herself, from ribbon to haori to sandals. “Do you think anything you’d have would fit me? Besides, even if Hijikata never saw me, I think he’d murder me if I wore anything with the Oda crest on it with the haori.”

“You could’ve asked the castle for some,” Nobunaga deadpans. She can’t help but snicker at the heat flooding Okita’s face, her flustered reply.

“W-well, I didn’t want to be a bother! What would you do with those clothes when I left, huh? I— I wasn’t about to leave them around for you to go sniffing like a creep!”

Now it’s Nobunaga’s turn to protest, puffing her chest out at Okita. “Hey! What makes you think I’d do something like that?”

“You _told_ me I smelled good!”

“That doesn’t mean I’d go smelling your _clothes_ ,” Nobunaga groans. “Seriously, Okita…”

“And— and I thought of something,” Okita says, subdued and almost hesitantly. “That I wanted to see, I mean. I don’t know if you’d have any here, though.”

“What is it?”

“Back when I lived in Edo, I could only see the fireworks from the sword school I went to. And in Kyoto, they don’t have fireworks displays anymore, not right now. Because of all the infighting and threats of arson, I mean.”

“So… you want to see some fireworks?” A mischievous spark has taken to Nobunaga’s eyes. Okita sees it catch and ignite, and isn’t sure if she likes it. Before she can say anything else, Nobunaga’s fingers graze her lips: “Say no more, I’ll get right on it. Keep practicing, won’t you? By the way, I don’t think your Hijitaka would’ve said anything like this— you know you look amazing when you practice, right?”

“It— it’s… Hijika...ta…” Okita trails off, reaching futilely for Nobunaga’s receding back. “And I’m not…” Okita heaves a long sigh, looking down at the reflective surface of her blade. A beleaguered Okita meets her gaze. There’s no use trying to argue with Nobunaga if she’s already gone beyond earshot. But even with her tired stance, there’s still a smile— that’s Nobunaga’s fault, and she knows it. It could only be Nobunaga who’d make her smile like this: exasperated but tender, devoid of the bloodlust and edge-set teeth that she bares for the men of the Shinsengumi.

With that enigmatic declaration, Nobunaga vanishes for the rest of the morning and afternoon. She’s nowhere that Okita can think to look: not in her room nor in the kitchen, not in the bath or even any of the tens of untouched rooms that this castle has manifested for some reason. The only remarkable thing she finds is an aged smudge of soot in one room on a lower floor, and that’s it. No Nobunaga, no sign of what she might be doing, no missing rifle.

Nobunaga returns as the sun begins to sink below the treeline, the scent of gunpowder and smoke stronger around her than usual, mouth curved in a sly grin that could only be born of accomplishment. Okita is sitting in their room when she arrives with a flourish of her arms and a sweep of her cape. Before she’s even spoken, Okita’s asking, “Now what’ve you done?”

“Don’t be so accusatory,” Nobunaga pouts. She skips over to where Okita’s sitting by the table, a still-steaming cup of tea clasped between her hands. “Come on,” she says, tugging on Okita’s kimono. “I wanna show you something.”

“Is it something that involves me putting down my tea?”

“No, you can bring it. Now come on!”

Nobunaga hauls Okita to her feet, fingers slipping between hers with practiced precision. Okita can’t help but try and stifle a smile as Nobunaga tugs her towards the balcony doors, dragging her out into the cooling dusk. “I set them on a pretty long timer,” Nobunaga says to Okita. “So it’ll probably take a minute for it to kick off.”

“For what?” asks Okita.

“You’ll see, you’ll see.” Nobunaga nods, again in that self-satisfied manner. She leans over to steal a sip of Okita’s tea, laughing when Okita swats at her head. For all of Nobunaga’s annoyances, Okita still can’t help but to be overwhelmed by fondness for her, from her tendency to steal whatever Okita’s trying to eat to her habit of sleeping with her stomach exposed. Had it been anyone else, Okita would’ve long since tired of them; but it’s Nobunaga, still caught up in the revelry of feeling, intoxicated by everything (but mostly Okita).

“See…?”

“Give it a moment. Hey, aren’t I supposed to be the impatient one?” Nobunaga shifts around, curling her legs beneath herself. Her cheek comes to rest on Okita’s shoulder, and a moment later, Okita’s hand finds its usual place in Nobunaga’s flowing hair.

“Nobu,” Okita sighs, her tone overtaken with wistfulness. She’s become increasingly overtaken by sentiment these days; she thinks Nobunaga has been, too. Two months is hardly enough time. That’s a breath in the life of the shogunate, the difference between wolves and samurai— a flickering dream in the span of eternity, as Nobunaga would put it.

Deep within the forest, an orange light makes for the purpling sky. “What’s…” Okita begins to say. She’s answered by the ripple that sways the trees, roaring with a crack of thunder, a crude expanse of sparks and fire fading as they descend. There’s more; they’re not stopping. They come from all over the forest before them, pops of brilliant red and gold, leaving skeletal puffs of curling smoke as ghosts to be wiped away in the wind.

“Nobu…” Okita says again. Nobunaga nuzzles against her, pressing the crown of her head against Okita’s neck. She needs no response, no gratitude but the raw and untamed excitement in Okita’s eyes, reflecting the fiery flowers unfurling themselves against the setting sun. Okita doesn’t need to know that these aren’t really fireworks. They’re black powder packed into tiny crates and given improvised lengths of matchlock for fuses, but they’re enough. They’re more than that. Staring up at them, Okita seems unburdened. She could be the Okita who’d lived in Edo and never seriously studied the sword, youth and innocence wrapped up in the wonder of the fireworks.

“This is wonderful,” Okita breathes. “You did this for— ”

“You asked.” Nobunaga tilts her head, staring up at Okita. Her heart flutters against her ribs, wild and uneven. Even after so long, having seen so much, there’s still someone that can spur such feelings in her. The thought makes Nobunaga giddy. These fireworks she’s launched into the sky are as much a display of her own power as they are of Nobunaga’s rekindled emotions. From the way Okita glances from the fireworks to Nobunaga, Nobunaga knows she understands.

“Thank you,” whispers Okita. Her hands reach for Nobunaga’s shoulders. Not this time, though— there’s only so far Nobunaga’s pride will bend, even to indulge Okita. With a breath that sounds more like a sharp burst of laughter, Nobunaga leaps upon Okita first. They tumble over on the balcony: in spite of her smaller stature, Nobunaga’s more used to this. Roughhousing with her many brothers had taught her how to win even as it urged her to show restraint. Okita’s had no such experience. The second Nobunaga begins to let up, she’s tossing Nobunaga off with her legs, sending her careening through the open doors and back into the bedroom.

“Are you sure you want to challenge me?” Nobunaga beckons to Okita from the floor: Okita doesn’t hesitate to pounce, trying to pin Nobunaga’s arms for long enough to gain an advantage. Nobunaga is quick, though, wriggling out from her cape and coat and grabbing Okita by the waist. Okita’s obi comes unraveled; she seizes it and flings it at Nobunaga, trying to distract her if even for a second.

Nobunaga bats it aside, closing in. She crashes into Okita with all the rage of her beloved rifle fire. They land hard against the futon, Okita cushioned by Nobunaga’s arms wrapped tight around her body. They’re breathless; they’re laughing. Nobunaga’s breath tickles the side of Okita’s throat. She shudders, and it shows in her sigh. Nobunaga pauses, considering her, their position. Okita’s ribbon has come loose, her hair draping messily around her in golden curtains. Her kimono has begun to slide from her shoulders, baring them to the encroaching cold. Outside, Nobunaga’s makeshift fireworks are still going— they nearly drown out Nobunaga’s whispered question, a hushed, “Is there anything else you wanted to do?”

Okita hesitates, but only for a second. That’s just another thing Nobunaga loves about her. She’s as decisive as Nobunaga, only lacking in the confidence to carry her decisions through. Not now, though. Her hands move with sureness to work through the buttons on Nobunaga’s shirt. They part easily, moving aside to reveal twisted mounds of discolored skin on pale flesh, a hundred battles and an angry fire recorded on her body. Okita doesn’t know what she’d expected to see; it’s simultaneously so much more, and less. She’d given only fleeting thoughts to what Nobunaga might look like beneath coat and shirt and the mantle of the Demon King. Never had it crossed her mind that she might find Nobunaga to be like this, so marked by the world and yet untouched, the weight of a war and a world Okita will never know ensnarled in such a familiar and very human form.

Nobunaga’s mouth moves as if to speak. Okita silences her with the slightest shake of her head. Without releasing Nobunaga’s shirt, she tugs her down until her lips can graze the arcing scar closest to her heart. Nobunaga’s breath stutters, catches. Her hands find Okita’s shoulders, gripping them intently. Okita will anchor her against the swells to come. It’s not in Nobunaga’s nature to be so open like this; every part of her protests at showing so much of her past for Okita to read freely. Okita trails kisses down Nobunaga’s body, offerings to soothe the marks that time and conflict have left upon her.

Nobunaga lets Okita continue until she feels that’s been enough. She descends upon Okita then, weighing Okita down, caressing Okita’s cheek with a dangerous softness. Like Okita, she does not speak. She lets her hands express whatever she might want to say, working quiet gasps out from Okita to be drowned out by the fireworks, until those very lights travel beneath Okita’s eyelids and fan out across her vision in sparks of blinding white.

* * *

There’s a cold week in the middle of spring. It’s not anything strange; it’s something Nobunaga’s grown used to seeing the months pass and change, but this time there’s a different air to it. It’s as if the world itself is trying to reverse the seasons and bring them back to long winter days, if only for Okita’s sake. Nobunaga knows it’s not for herself. The world had not picked favorites in her time; if the heavens had wept, it certainly wasn’t for Nobunaga.

The balcony door slides open all the way, and Okita pokes her head through. The steam rising from her cup of tea twirls itself around the strand of hair sticking up from her head. “Nobu?” she says, fixating on the pillar of fire rotating slowly at Nobunaga’s side. “What’s that?”

“Just the same as usual.” Nobunaga waves a hand lazily, and the pillar dissipates. “Testing my powers. Warming up a spot for you. Here, have a seat.”

Okita plops down in the spot of warmth by Nobunaga’s side. She places her tea down on the floorboards, turning until she’s laying on her side, head nestled into Nobunaga’s lap. “Mm,” Okita says. “I like this better.”

“Of course you would,” Nobunaga says fondly. Her finger prods at Okita’s cheek, swiftly batted away. Okita smiles, begins to cough— she waves off Nobunaga’s outstretched hands, rubbing her chest and shaking her head.

“I’m fine,” Okita mumbles. “Just the cold.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. It’s fine. Trust me, Nobu.”

Nobunaga sighs, relenting. “Alright,” she says, and lowers her hand back into the strands of Okita’s hair. She trusts Okita; she does. What she isn’t sure of is if she believes Okita. She knows Okita far too well, and that there are still things Okita tries to keep hidden. Nobunaga has her own secrets too, but they’re nothing as immediate as being on the verge of coughing up blood.

Okita settles in place, laying face-up, content to let Nobunaga play with her hair. Her gaze seems to alternate between Nobunaga and the steadily darkening sky. After a while, she says: “I never got to see things like this in Kyoto, you know.”

“Like what?”

“All these stars.” Okita lifts a hand and runs it over the constellations, as if to feel the stars rising from the black against her fingertips. “It’s too bright in Kyoto. You don’t really get to see things like this, even if you go deep into the hills. And it’s even worse in Edo. All but the brightest stars get blocked out there.”

“I see,” Nobunaga says. “In my time, that wasn’t so much a thing. Kyoto, perhaps, had that problem. Maybe that’s why the Ashikaga decided to try and turn against me. Their priests didn’t see all the stars and misread an auspicious sign, ha!” Nobunaga chortles to herself, and Okita laughs along with her.

Then there’s silence again. Nobunaga settles in place, finding nothing within her to say. She’s already spoken everything she’s wanted to to Okita: that’s who Nobunaga is, after all. It isn’t in her nature to hold back, if given an opportunity. Okita, on the other hand— she knows Okita’s mulling over something. Okita’s still new to this business of speaking her mind; she can, but she suppresses it. The day when Okita will have to leave is drawing quickly near, and Nobunaga knows it’s because of this. Okita’s afraid to grow too used to voicing her thoughts, of the freedom it would bring that no samurai should dare close to.

“Nobu?” Okita says again. She reaches up, patting along her head until she finds Nobunaga’s hand to grasp. “How much more time do we have?”

She’s been asking this more and more frequently. If anything, Okita seems more apprehensive of this than the unspoken countdown of her own death. Nobunaga shifts her weight, leans down: her lips brush Okita’s, slowly but briefly, before she sits back up. “A few weeks,” Nobunaga says. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you when it’s almost time.”

“When I go back— ” The words spill out from Okita in an uncontrolled rush. She can’t keep them contained any longer. She’s thought of this so much that now it bursts out into the open in a reckless tangle. “I have to tell my commander I found you. I have to, or else they’ll think I deserted them. And even then they might, but, but— ”

“It’s okay.” Nobunaga squeezes Okita’s hand. This is another inevitability she’s come to accept. The question is who, if anyone, might come to try and kill her. She doesn’t think they’d send Okita back. Whoever else it would be, Nobunaga knows she’d beat them: she has her fire and her sword, and once Okita goes, she’ll no longer have this mortal body. “I understand,” she tells Okita, and she does. This is a duty of Okita’s that even her devotion to Nobunaga can’t sway. Even if she’d wanted to, Nobunaga would’ve told her otherwise. She would rather Okita live than die for something that has no reach in the living world.

“Oh, but hey, do me a favor?” Okita tilts her head up questioningly, craning her head to meet Nobunaga’s gaze. “Think of me when you’re out there every now and then, won’t you? So I can have some sake. And maybe practice my tea-making skills. Could you do that for me?”

Nobunaga’s tone is so light, so careless, that Okita can’t help but to laugh. Another moment, and Nobunaga joins in too: their hands trembling in each others’ grasps, the sounds of mirth quickly fading, replaced by a somber and stretching silence. They both know what it is Nobunaga’s really asking. Nobunaga is still not so quick to admit weakness, but she’ll show a hint of it to Okita. It’s the most she’s willing to do, and the most she’s ever done.

“I’ll do that,” Okita tells her. “And I’ll remember you. I promise.”

“Hey,” Nobunaga tries to laugh, “maybe we can get the passage to open for us on Tanabata, then.” She grins weakly down at Okita— that’s all she can think to do. Even this fleeting glimpse into her deeper self is too much for Nobunaga to allow for long. Okita nods, her fingers shifting over the back of Nobunaga’s hand. This, too, she understands about Nobunaga, and doesn’t pry further.

“You know it still rains a lot in Kyoto during July, right?”

“Do you really think I, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, would let myself be stopped by a little rain?” This time, Nobunaga’s laugh is genuine: a full-throated one, her head tilting back to unleash it at the stars. “Of course I wouldn’t! If I really could leave here on Tanabata, I’d come see you, rain or no rain.”

“I know,” Okita whispers. Her hand grips tight around Nobunaga’s, clenching with all the strength she can summon. Nobunaga matches her pressure, firm but still soft, the only thing she can do. Her laugh has twisted in her throat into a knot, strangling her voice. For once, Nobunaga is speechless. There’s nothing in her that can work its way out into the open. There’s just this horrid weight, burning at the lining of her throat like smoke and descending dangerously into the hollow of her chest where her vulnerable heart lays beating.

There’s the tiniest sound from Okita: a wispy little gasp. Nobunaga looks down: Okita’s cheeks shine beneath the hint of the newborn moon, her eyes overflowing with silver. Nobunaga reaches with her other hand, wipes Okita’s face dry with a shake of her head. If she could speak, she knows she’d say something like, _Don’t cry now, Okita. Save your tears for July._

Instead, she pulls Okita up into her arms. Okita wraps her hands beneath Nobunaga’s elbows, buries her face in Nobunaga’s coat. Nobunaga dips her chin, presses her cheek to the side of Okita’s head. Through the fabric on her chest, Nobunaga can still feel the frenzied beating of Okita’s heart, racing in time with hers. If only she could feel this forever, she thinks. If only she could find it within in herself to speak the only comfort she can think of, that in the star-devoid skies that haunt the old city, surely there must no longer be a barrier to separate those ever-parted lovers.

* * *

What is a handful of weeks in the life of a man? Enough time to begin to learn how a sword should be held. Enough time to realize that a sickness is more than a cough and fever, once Okita wakes up with sheets covered in drying, sticky red. Just barely enough for Kondo to get an idea, find enough people to agree with him, and uproot from the only home they’d ever truly known.

Nowhere near long enough to begin to think of how to say goodbye.

This is the last time Okita will fall asleep in Nobunaga’s futon. Tomorrow will be the last time she wakes in it. For now, Okita avoids that fragile in-between. She’s staring at Nobunaga— Nobunaga’s watching her, too. They haven’t spoken in hours. It’s not that they’ve run out of things to say, but that nothing would be sufficient. Nothing could begin to mend the rift still tearing itself wider and deeper through Okita’s chest. Nothing can slow the return of Nobunaga’s soul to its former place behind a carefully guarded facade, where it’s already begun to retreat.

Okita stretches a hand out, takes hold of Nobunaga’s shirt. She’s forgone her coat and cape for the smoothness of Okita’s kimono on her skin, the last memories of human warmth she’ll have for another ten or hundred lifetimes. Indulgently, Nobunaga moves closer. Okita leans forward slightly: her forehead thumps against Nobunaga’s collarbones. Nobunaga’s touch is reassuring, and so unfairly warm. It’s not that it’s too much, it’s that there’s nothing else like it. There couldn’t be— how could anything begin to compare to Nobunaga?

“Ah, Okita,” Nobunaga breathes. “Do you regret falling for the Demon King now? Surely your history told you about all the hearts I broke during my conquest.”

“Nobu,” Okita whispers, pleads. “You’re the worst.”

Even now, Nobunaga’s trying to make her smile. It’s not that Okita doesn’t appreciate the effort— it just hurts to. Everything hurts, even the simple act of breathing past the lump in her throat, searing her with unshed tears.

“I’m sorry,” Nobunaga says. It’s genuine: her fingers find the curve of Okita’s cheek and linger there, rubbing tiny circles into her skin. “Okita? Okita… you don’t have to go back. You know I’d always let you stay here with me.”

“Don’t,” Okita begs her. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.” Right now, there’s enough resolve within her left to turn down Nobunaga’s offer. Another hour, another repetition, and even that might fade. “I want to. I want to so much— ”

“Then— ”

“I’m going to die anyway, Nobu. Wherever I go, I’m going to die, and I don’t want to die alone.”

“What about…” Nobunaga begin, and falls silent. This isn’t her place to speak. Nobunaga had chosen her path, and even at its bloody end, it wasn’t until she’d fled into the hills that she knew true loneliness. Okita tugs at her shirt, telling her to continue. “The men in your group,” Nobunaga says. “Kondo and the others. You said you’d wanted them near you, before.”

“They’re not the same,” Okita mumbles. “They’re not like you. They’re all about the regulations and doing that’s right and honorable. You… you’ve never wanted anything for me. Just what I would want, and…” Okita shakes her head with a shudder. “If only we’d been born in the same time,” she whispers. “Then we wouldn’t have to leave each other like this.”

“You shouldn’t wish for that,” Nobunaga says quietly. “If you’d been born in my time, you’d only have known war and loss and how to move on from it. I lost so many things I cared for in that time.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Okita says. “I meant I wish you’d been born in my time, too.”

“Ah?”

“You— you said I had a gentle soul. Well… you had to have recognized it somehow, right? You… you had one too, didn’t you? Or you could’ve, before you lost it in all the fighting. That’s why I can see you like this.” Okita looks up, meets Nobunaga’s eyes. They’re still that same bloody and unrepentant red, and yet they go so soft when she looks at Okita. “You could’ve been such a kind person— ”

“And if I hadn’t done what I’d done back then, we wouldn’t have been able to meet in this future,” Nobunaga says. “So it’s useless to think of things that way.”

“Not really,” Okita says beneath her breath. “We’re going to be separated either way.”

“Okita.” Nobunaga nuzzles against Okita’s head, taking in her scent, her weight, every last detail. “Don’t say things like that right now. We still have a little more time together.”

“I know.” Okita nods shakily. She’d almost expected to hear disappointment in Nobunaga’s voice. She knows that Nobunaga would never begrudge her if she chose to leave, but its absence still stings. If only Nobunaga would tell her to stay— but that would be impossible, both for Okita to do and Nobunaga to ask of her.

Okita takes in another long breath, steadying herself. There are some things that can’t be said even in this barrier, but some others can still be given voice before Okita inevitably tucks them away before her journey back. “Nobu?” she says. “I… there’s something I want.”

“Oh?” Nobunaga lifts herself slightly off the futon, looking down at Okita. The faintest sliver of approval fills her tone as she says, “What might that be?”

“Just be with me.”

Nobunaga nods. There’s nothing more that needs to be said. She leans into Okita’s outstretched hand, letting it traverse her cheek. Okita presses her lips to Nobunaga’s: a long, soft kiss. Nobunaga doesn’t know whose hands it is that wind in the other’s hair. She doesn’t know who it is that undoes her shirt or Okita’s kimono, stripping away the last things between them. Their bodies curl against each other, not a single space between them, exchanging touches, breath, Nobunaga’s unnatural warmth and the strains of sound that Okita sings into the night. They shift and shudder beneath the starlit sky until the early strings of sunrise creep up from the hills, finding Nobunaga and Okita so tightly close together that it’s impossible to distinguish each from the other.

* * *

Nobunaga stands across the courtyard, waiting with a small sack in her hands by the gate. Okita steps slowly down from the wooden walkway, sandals crunching in the gravel and the withering cherry blossom petals still scattered in the dried-up riverbed. She lifts a hand, trails it along the overgrowth, bamboo stalks and leaves tickling her palm. At her other side, her katana knocks against her leg, slightly heavier than before. It hasn’t changed at all— it’s just Okita who feels an added weight. She knows it’s because of the sickness wasting her body away, and yet she can’t help but feel as if it’s something more: as if a part of herself is being left behind in the castle to her back.

Nobunaga nods as Okita draws even with her, opening the sack. She’d vanished from her room once they’d both awakened saying something about Okita needing to get ready. This morning, they hadn’t greeted each other as they usually would. Okita can understand why. There’d be no point in saying good morning when it would soon be followed by goodbye.

“I packed you some things,” Nobunaga says, plunging a hand into the bag. “For the road. Some food— ”

“You know Kyoto’s not too far from here, right?”

“Just in case you need it. And this.” Nobunaga produces a small golden dome etched with the five-petaled Oda flower. There’s a matching one on Nobunaga’s coat: shinier than the one in Nobunaga’s upraised palm, a tarnished clasp for Nobunaga’s cape. “To prove you didn’t desert them,” she says. The trembling of her corners of her smile says something else: _so you can remember me._

Nobunaga drops the clasp back into the sack, tying it shut and holding it out for Okita. The hopeful smile on her face doesn’t reach her dulled eyes. “Nobu,” Okita says, slinging it over her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Nobunaga mutters. “No problem.”

For a moment there’s nothing spoken between them, just the awkward shuffle of feet. Above them, the morning sky continues to brighten— Nobunaga had woken Okita early to send her back as soon as the passage opened. The better to convince her superiors she’d really intended to return, she’d said.

“Well.” Nobunaga casts her gaze into the wandering clouds. She doesn’t dare to meet Okita’s eyes. After so long together, Okita’s learned to read her as well as Nobunaga sees through her. She doesn’t want Okita to see anything right now. There’s already enough temptation to stay as it is. “You should get going, if you mean to be home in time for lunch.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Nobunaga sees Okita nod. Okita draws closer— her fingers wrap around Nobunaga’s and slip through them. “You’re coming too, right?”

Nobunaga hadn’t meant to do so. She’d planned to part ways with Okita at the gate— the better to ensure that Okita would really leave. She chances a quick look at Okita’s pleading face, and the ice she’d tried to force around her heart melts in a rush of affection. Of course she couldn’t surrender this last chance to be with Okita. For once, both she and Okita want her to be selfish.

“Alright,” Nobunaga says, squeezing Okita’s hand.

But still neither of them move.

It’s Nobunaga who takes the first step, through the gate and towards the trees. Okita follows after her, drawn along by their connected hands. The forest that would normally be filled with the waking breeze is quiet. The drooping branches and their dew-laden leaves seem to weep for Okita and Nobunaga as they walk. A thousand droplets mark their passage: pink and blue, red and black, the tremble of Nobunaga’s jaw and the sheen on Okita’s eyes that go unnoticed by the other.

They go past Nobunaga’s clearing. They go until they reach a cluster of trees with a patch of bark scraped away, all on the same side— where Nobunaga had come to find Okita, one night long ago.

“This is it,” Nobunaga tells her. “Go past here and keep walking straight. You’ll find your way to the main road soon enough.”

“Nobu…” Okita reaches for Nobunaga with her free hand, thumb trailing dangerously close to Nobunaga’s lips. She takes a breath, leans in. Nobunaga’s hand closes around her wrist, stopping her just short.

“No,” Nobunaga whispers. She sees Okita’s eyes widen, the wetness at their edges teetering on the edge of falling. “You can’t,” she says. “You have to go back. I don’t want to make going back to your world harder on you.”

“Nobu, please— ”

“I know you, Okita. If you do this… if you stayed, you’d regret it.”

“I wouldn’t,” Okita insists. “Just let me…” Nobunaga doesn’t reply, just plays with Okita’s fingers. She can’t bring herself to look at Okita directly. “How do you know you can’t leave, anyway?” Okita says heatedly. “You’re human, aren’t you? You’re— you could leave. Right now, with me. Why don’t you?”

“I can’t,” Nobunaga whispers. “You’re… unique, Okita. You’d be the only who sees me like this.”

“And isn’t that enough?”

Nobunaga lifts her head, glances at the treeline. Releasing Okita’s hand, she walks forward. Okita trails after her, tight on her heels. She nearly smacks into Nobunaga when Nobunaga’s stopped short, pressed against an invisible wall, a hint of fire flickering from her fingers.

“No,” Nobunaga says. “I guess it’s not.”

“That’s not fair.” Okita hangs her head, blinking quickly. “You’re… you’re human right now. And you’re a part of the world I know, too. Why can’t you…”

“Oh, Okita.” The chuckle that leaves Nobunaga is genuine, if tired. “Really, only someone like you would ever say that to me.”

“I want you to come with me.” Okita glares up at Nobunaga, no longer trying to hold back her tears. “I said it already.” Her voice cracks mid-word, a hint of a sob leaking through. “So…”

“Okita.” Nobunaga reaches out, enveloping Okita in her embrace. “It’s okay. This was going to happen one way or another— it can’t be helped. You’re going to do fine out there, alright? I know you. You’ll be okay.”

Okita doesn’t respond— just shakes her head into Nobunaga’s shoulder, clinging to her coat. Nobunaga doesn’t try to pry her off, though she knows she should. She simply basks in the feeling of Okita’s weight between her arms. “You’ll be okay,” she repeats, all that she can say. “You’ll be fine.”

“Nobu…” Okita squirms from side to side, shaking Nobunaga’s hands loose from her shoulders. She shrugs the sack off, lowering it beside her feet and tugging at her haori. She holds it out for Nobunaga, the desperate glint to her eyes replaced for a fleeting moment by expectation.

“What’s this for?” Nobunaga asks.

“Take it.” Okita flicks her wrist, shaking it at Nobunaga. “So you can remember me, too.”

“Oh.”

Nobunaga reaches out, lets the haori slip between her open fingers. It’s somewhat softer than she’d expected it to be. “I... “ Okita mumbles, chewing at her lower lip. “Anyone who wears that can call me Souji. So… you…”

“Ah,” Nobunaga murmurs. “Thank you.”

Another silence. It would seem they’ve both run out of things to say, or else hesitate to speak them into being. “Well,” Nobunaga tries to laugh. “You need to head back, and so do I. I have to wash that futon in your room out in case someone else wanders in.”

“Really?” Okita musters a brave smile, already crumbling before it fully forms upon her lips. “That’s what’s on your mind right now?”

“So what if it is?” Nobunaga says. The words sound hollow leaving her. They both know well enough it’s just instinctive, throwing careless phrases into the wind to be shattered like the fragile illusions they are. “Okita Souji,” she whispers, twisting the haori between her hands. “I love you. I’ll always remember you.”

“I will too, Nobu. And I love you.”

Okita stoops and picks up her sack. What they’ve put off thinking of, what they’ve spoken of in avoidant and brief conversations, has finally come. Okita takes a small step backward, drawing even with the trees. To her, Nobunaga looks as if she’s standing still. She doesn’t see how Nobunaga tilts forward ever so slightly, her weight resting upon the edge of the barrier. She doesn’t realize that Nobunaga’s lifted arm is less a wave and more an outstretched hand that could never hope to reach her.

“Goodbye,” Okita whispers to her. She doesn’t give Nobunaga the chance to say it back. She turns and flees into the forest before either of them has time to think. She’s there, pink kimono and sun shining through her hair; she’s vanishing between the tree trunks, a disappearing wisp of color soon lost from Nobunaga’s sight.

Nobunaga knows she shouldn’t wait there at the forest’s edge. Okita isn’t coming back. It’s wrong of Nobunaga, but both her selfishness and a hope for Okita she knows is impossible keeping her anchored there. There’s something more as well, a creeping feeling that Nobunaga can’t put a name to. It starts in her chest, radiating outward in sharp and sudden heat. At first, it’s just uncomfortable. Then it builds— bursts of searing pain from a memory long ago, one that Nobunaga had distanced herself from in her brief happiness with Okita.

Honnouji crawls up Nobunaga’s limbs: skeleton fingers and blood-red bone. She howls with its fiery anger, dropping to her knees in the dirt: aching lungs and a shattered heart vanishing in peals of flame and smoke. No longer contained, her fire gushes from her, torturous screams echoing around her from the rapidly heating air. It’s not pain that Nobunaga feels though, not in the sense she’s used to. She shouldn’t be able to feel anything in this body. That, at least, she remembers well. But it hurts: deep in her chest, worse than the pang she’d felt when she’d leveled her rifle to her brother’s forehead or seen Mitsuhide’s banner flying over rising smoke.

There’s smoke rising from somewhere near her, too. Nobunaga glances around, looking for its source. She hasn’t set anything ablaze; it’s just her. It’s water, pooled impossibly in the arches of her eyesockets, hissing as it steams away. Nobunaga swipes at her face, missing just short. When she tries again, she’s met with only the unpleasant scrape of bone on bone.

Okita’s haori falls from her hand. Nobunaga picks it up, pulls it tight against her chest. Reaching out, she calls fire to her side: a column of it just taller than she’d be standing at full height, fluttering in the wind like Okita’s hair and the sleeves of her kimono. It’s not Okita she finds in the fire though, or even some semblance of her past. It’s just a whirl of dancing orange, too blurred for Nobunaga to try and make anything out.


	5. Chapter 5

The Shinsengumi base isn’t where Okita remembers it. They’ve moved further into the city, taking residence the outer buildings near a shrine. She supposes it makes sense. Kondo had always complained about slow reaction times and having to run across the city. Before, it had just been bluster. Serizawa had clashed with Kondo over it; Yamanami had disagreed, though softer and less violently. It’s just a show of how different things are now— how even those who stand to stop this changing world have shifted along with its flow.

There are more new faces in this base than Okita remembers. They hardly notice her passing aside from the occasional and fleeting curious glances. To them, she’s not the First Captain who went missing long ago. She’s someone insignificant; a mislead peasant wanting to join or a messenger for someone far more important than herself. One of them points the way to the highest floor for her with a gruff warning: “If you’re looking for Kondo, he’s out right now. You’ll have to deal with the mad dog instead.”

Who that would be, Okita thinks she knows already. She’d thought of it briefly at Nobunaga’s castle, but refused to dwell on it for long. To do so would’ve been to acknowledge her world continuing on without her, the possibility that going home might not be as easy as she’d always thought.

Okita climbs the last set of stairs and peers into the upper study. She doesn’t immediately recognize the man sitting at what should be Kondo’s desk. Months of fighting have put on more muscle, but the main change is on his face: the faint lines Okita remembers there worn deeper, the angle of his brows now a stern and unyielding slant. Hijikata looks up from the paper in his hands, eyes darting to the doorway. “Who’s out there?” he demands. “If you have news for me, come in and- Souji?”

Hijikata throws the paper down, bounding to his feet with the same frightening speed Okita’s always admired him for. He advances on her with a few quick strides, tugging her out of the hallway and into the study, plopping her in front of his desk.

“Hi, Hijikata,” Okita offers meekly. “I’m back.”

“I can see that. Really, now.” Hijikata takes back his seat, leaning forward with his curled fingers pressed to his forehead. “You certainly picked a convenient time.”

“I- where’s Kondo? And Yamanami?”

“Kondo’s off in Edo,” Hijikata says. “Some business with his contacts there. Yamanami’s dead.”

“Dead…?” Okita’s nails dig into the flesh of her palms. “How?”

“After you disappeared, there wasn’t anyone left here who could make him see reason.” Hijikata sits back, taking a long breath. “He left the Shinsengumi just after the spring equinox. I went after him and brought him back here to commit seppuku.”

Hijikata’s words drone tonelessly around Okita’s ears. She hardly hears them, much less discerns their meaning. Only her heart registers Hijikata’s words, writhing under a twinge of pain that grows steadily with each passing moment. Yamanami, the man who’d been like a brother to her, gone. Kondo and Hijikata’s voice of reason, given in to madness himself. Okita comes back to herself short of breath and with Hijikata’s voice still striking at her straining chest.

“He said he left to try and find you,” Hijikata says. “Kondo and I never mentioned where you’d gone, just that you were missing.” Hijikata folds his arms across his chest, narrowed eyes studying Okita closely. Even having known Hijikata for so many years and entrusted her back to him in combat, Okita can’t help but hold back a shudder. She knows why he’s called the mad dog, now— the fervid hunger that shone from his eyes on the battlefield had burned too bright one day, and never quite faded fully.

Hijikata is silent for a long while. The only sound between them is the gruff rumble of Hijikata’s breath. Okita knows what it is he must be seeing: Okita with no haori and her hair disheveled; brown smudges on the hem of her hakama and the sides of her kimono; eyes rimmed with lightening pink that had been angry red just half an hour before. Hijikata might not seem the type, but he’d be the only man in the Shinsengumi capable of piecing this all together. Hijikata knows enough of romance to see its subtle threads, the ones tangled around Okita spinning a story of a tree hidden from the road and Okita at its base, back to its trunk and palms dug into her weeping eyes.

“You wouldn’t come back unless you had something worth our time,” Hijikata says at last. “What did you find?”

“The- the stories were real,” Okita tells him. Carefully, she shrugs her bag from her shoulder and tugs loose the knot around its neck. Rummaging inside, her fingers brush Nobunaga’s stray snacks: something smooth and sticky; Okita bites back the keening rising in her throat and grabs for anything that isn’t konpeito. “Here,” she says, producing Nobunaga’s symbol. “I brought this back to show you.”

“Someone’s living up there?”

“A spirit.” Okita sucks in a breath, steeling herself to speak her next words. “Oda Nobunaga.”

“Oda Nobunaga is dead,” Hijikata says sharply. “Do you have any other proof?”

“No, just…” Okita blinks a few times, and behind her eyelids rise stirrings of heat, memories of fireworks and Nobunaga’s closeness. “Just that.”

“Let me see it.” Hijikata holds his hand out expectantly. “Okita,” he says. Okita looks down: instinctively, she’s curled her fingers around the metal disc, tugging it closer to herself.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “Here.”

Okita passes the disc over to Hijikata, and it’s as if a tenfold heap of metal has settled in her stomach. She’s just doing what Nobu had meant her to do, Okita thinks. She’d given Okita that disc as proof; as Okita watches Hijikata turn it over in his hands, she feels as though she’s dealt Nobunaga a blow worse than Honnouji, though one she’ll never know.

“Interesting,” Hijikata says. “But still unbelievable. Even if, somehow, Oda Nobunaga was still alive, there’s no way he’d be able to live so close to Kyoto undetected.”

“She,” Okita can’t help but say. Hijikata’s gaze snaps to her, burning even more intently. “Nob— Oda is female. And she’s cursed. That’s why the disappearances and reappearances all happened around the same times. There’s only two days when our world overlaps with hers.”

“You might have had better luck telling that story to Kondo than me,” Hijikata laughs. He balances the disc on its edge, rotating it slowly beneath his fingers. _Don’t play with it like that,_ Okita wishes she could say, but she stays quiet. This isn’t the world she’d grown so used to anymore. In this world, Nobunaga is a long-gone spectre, and her belongings mere curiosities.

Okita squeezes her eyes shut, but it’s not to avoid seeing Hijikata. No, something’s welling up. Hot, furious. Iron. Okita starts to sag, doubling over. Kyoto’s summer heat is held in place by its surrounding hills, and Okita, so used to the cool air of a distant forest, isn’t used to it. Her hands go up to her mouth; fresh and bubbling blood spills into them, and Hijikata looks up.

This time when he speaks, Hijikata is quieter. He’s by no means grown softer, but a hint of the Hijikata Okita knew has returned, the slightest sympathy present in his voice. “I’ll investigate the truth of your claim myself,” he says. “Whatever happened, Kondo and I know you not to be a liar. You may rest in one of the spare rooms on the ground floor while you wait. If you attempt to leave the compound, it will be considered desertion.”

“I understand,” Okita says hoarsely. Hijikata dismisses her with a nod, but it’s another minute before Okita feels sure enough to stand. When she does, it’s on wobbly legs like a fawn’s, trembling as she starts towards the hall. Okita pauses at the doorway, one hand on the wooden frame, glancing back at Hijikata. He looks back, surveying Okita with those fathomless eyes.

“Is there something else you need?”

Yes. There is. Nobunaga’s clasp. What Nobunaga had entrusted her with. “No,” she manages to say. She isn’t that attached to Nobunaga, after all (that’s a lie, but in this world that must be the truth). Another look verging on longing, and Okita is gone: limping down the stairways and to a room at the very back of the lowest floor.

The futon there shines in the sunlight with the slightest sheen of dust. Wisps of silver float up in little clouds as Okita pulls the covers back. This isn’t the one that Okita had used. Hers is probably gone by now, washed and assigned to some new recruit after the move. Her room is gone, too. The only remnants of Okita Souji left in the Shinsengumi are the whispered stories of a missing captain and the memories of those that knew her.

Okita groans gently as she slips into the futon. Her chest shivers with the weight of the knot it carries. It had formed as Okita fled the forest and grew as she sat within earshot of the road, drowning out passing footfalls with her own uncontrollable sobs. Now it pulls on her, as if it means to drag her beneath the earth and bury her there. It would be so easy to let it. Okita knows the only reason she’s alive is because Hijikata is willing to believe her, and thinks her too infirm to run far. Okita’s stomach turns over, thoughts of Hijikata coming after her like he’d hunted Yamanami racing through her mind. Maybe that’s when he’d become the mad dog, hunting down his own. Hijikata had never gotten along with Yamanami, but brothers in arms were still brothers.

Safe beneath the layered covers, Okita at last allows her eyes to drift shut. In this lighting, with the sun coming through the window and splashing against her cheek, she might almost be able to convince herself it’s Nobunaga. That’s the only familiarity Okita can find. Kyoto buzzes with the hum of its lifeblood, a thousand in distinct voices. In there might be Hijikata’s, growling low between the rooftops. Gone is the forest quiet Okita had grown accustomed to. The newfound noise drowns out her thoughts, down to the imagined shifting of the futon beside her.

Okita doesn’t know how long she’s asleep. It could be minutes, even hours. She’s jarred from the hint of rest she’d found by a clamor: shouting men; the wood above and around her creaking with their footsteps.

Okita pokes her head out the door, waving at the nearest man. “What’s going on?” she asks.

“Whoever’s not resting or on patrol needs to report outside immediately,” the man replies. “Hijikata’s orders.”

“Oh,” is all that Okita says. Knowing Hijikata, he’s probably intending to make the troops run drills again. “What if he told me to rest?”

“Better do what Hijikata says.”

Okita nods, sliding the door shut and returning to her futon. The ruckus begins to subside. A few fading calls mark the receding sounds of sandals on stone.

Then it’s quiet, just like Okita remembers.

Something about it seems odd. Okita, half-lost in the warmth of sheets and sun, doesn’t realize it at first. When she does, it’s like a bath of icy water’s been tossed over her. She lurches upright, clawing for her katana and scrambling for her obi.

This silence is not the Shinsengumi’s, but the forest’s. Hijikata is by no means a quiet commander or instructor. If Hijikata had called the men to arms, this silence could only mean they’ve left for somewhere else.

It could only mean he’s going after Nobunaga.

So that’s what Hijikata had meant. Okita fumbles with her obi, losing the thread repeatedly between her shaking fingers. She’s a fool; she should’ve realized what Hijikata meant the moment he said those words. Of them all, Hijikata was the one who was the most suspicious. If he thought Nobunaga could be alive, if there was even the slightest possibility, he’d go and finish the job himself.

Only Okita had failed to mention that Nobunaga couldn’t be killed.

Several previous minutes go by before she’s tied her katana at her side. Okita struggles to the door, leaning heavily against the wall. It takes so much effort to keep herself upright; but that’s fine. Hijikata doesn’t know the forest like she and Nobunaga do. Nobunaga can handle herself for long enough. Making for the forest in a long and lopsided stride, Okita lets the iron taste building in her mouth spur her on, a reminder of what she stands to lose. With it comes a comforting thought: she doesn’t have to beat Hijikata there— she just has to make sure she’s not too late.

* * *

The remains of the clearing smolder around Nobunaga. No longer can she tell which trunks had been shot and which are fragmented from the heat and force of her flames. All her burning eyes can see is the kilometer of fire that stretches in either direction, the last and dwindling remnants of her fury.

She’d known that this would happen. From the beginning, Okita had made clear her intent to leave. It would’ve hurt Okita more to stay than to go— but Nobunaga can’t forget that torn expression she’d worn in their last moments together. Guarded longing mingled with hurt, something that she’d rather never have touched Okita’s face. She had done that— and they had both accepted that. From the very beginning, they’d known how the end would be— Okita Souji would return to Kyoto, and Oda Nobunaga would be alone again.

Nobunaga shakes her head, starting towards the castle. Charcoal branches and fallen plant growth twist and crackle beneath her boots. Just weeks earlier, she had been preparing black powder crates in this very spot. Now the treetops blister and shed their ashen leaves, lifeless grey dripping from a clear and sunny sky.

And then, something from behind her.

A light snapping, like a footstep.

Nobunaga looks at her hand. Still skeletal. She looks up.

A banner, the same color as the sky, flies above the smoke. Nobunaga feels her hands grip tighter; a distant memory grating at her raw and burning throat. Flags above smoke, wood burning around her. Mitsuhide’s men shouting their intent to kill her. Their pikes the next thing to appear over the fallen temple walls— but it’s not pikes. A handful of samurai unsheathe their katana and advance on Nobunaga, and there’s only one way they could have found her.

(There isn’t. Okita had to have come here somehow. They knew about her already. It isn’t Okita. It would never be Okita.)

The man at the front of the group holds up his hand. His eyes scrutinize every part of Nobunaga: the clasp around her neck, the haori still entwined around her arm. Nobunaga watches him back, notes the way his hands curl around his sword with each new revelation and the growing stiffness of his breath. His stance is like Okita’s, Nobunaga realizes. This would have to be one of the men who she’d spoken of, Yamanami or Kondo or Hijikata.

“Oda Nobunaga.” Her name leaves the man’s lips not as a question, but with the heavy weight of recognition. A simple shifting of his feet sends his companions into motion. They fan out slowly, blades aimed at Nobunaga, as if to try and surround her. “That’s who you are, isn’t it?”

Nobunaga doesn’t answer. She sweeps her head from one side to the other, taking in the others. Some point their swords at her with confidence. A rare few keep shifting their sweaty-fingered grips. Those will be the ones she can scare the easiest, Nobunaga thinks. She won’t strike to kill, not just yet. Any one of these men might be someone dear to Okita, and Nobunaga is as hesitant to take that from her as she is to needlessly change a world that she’s no longer connected to.

“Your silence is a condemnation.” The man lifts his sword, leveling it with Nobunaga’s chest. “Your presence in this world is an aberration and a danger. Therefore, by the power granted to me by the shogun, I sentence you to death.”

If only things would be so easy as that, Nobunaga thinks with a smirk. The man closes in with a swift set of steps, nearly as fast as Okita. Even if Nobunaga had wanted to react, she wouldn’t have had the time to. The man’s sword is at her neck in a second, swinging full-force.

Silence fills the clearing for only a second. Then comes the rustling of wind, building to a crescendo with the rustling of Nobunaga’s fire. The man leaps back, pulling his blade free, the little nick in Nobunaga’s neck bone already beginning to disappear. “Vice-Commander Hijikata?” one of the other samurai says nervously. “What’s the plan?”

Hijikata doesn’t answer right away. His gaze remains fixated on Nobunaga. “You really are cursed,” he drawls, sounding more curious than afraid. The same can’t be said of his men. Their fear shines brighter than the fire reflected in their eyes, only throwing more fuel on the blaze. _Yes,_ Nobunaga thinks. _I am, to be the monster your men fear._ “Is this what you did to Okita?”

That startles Nobunaga, the slightest jerking of her shoulders. It doesn’t go unnoticed by Hijikata, who dares to press in closer. Against her better judgement, Nobunaga’s voice crackles between her teeth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“My First Captain comes back after having gone missing for months with red eyes and dirty clothes. I come to investigate her claims and find a warlord who should be long dead in the middle of a burning forest. And you have her uniform, which I know Okita would never surrender willingly. What am I supposed to think, other than that you’ve been toying with her for sport?”

 _You know nothing_. Nobunaga wants to rage; her voice yearns to be let loose over the treetops, joining the heat rising from her bones. Around her, the other men begin to take several steps back, retreating from the quivering air. Hijikata, his brow beading with sweat, doesn’t. He’s not afraid. Even this unrelenting heat, worse than even Kyoto’s hottest summer day, won’t drive him off.

“You dare think I would hurt Okita?” Nobunaga’s words come out distorted, tongues of flame rushing from every part of her. They cover the already-scorched forest floor, finding no purchase on its ashen remnants. Still the fire spreads. This isn’t anything burning; it’s all Nobunaga. “I can allow your trespass, but not your insult!”

“What’s it saying?”

“Hold your ground!” Hijikata barks. Even with an inferno pooling around his feet, he refuses to yield. In some deep and disregarded part of her chest, Nobunaga feels a begrudging sort of respect, the kind she’d once held for Shingen and Kenshin. He would’ve made a fine warrior in any time other than this.

But their worlds have merged; this is Hijikata’s time, even if both their sentiments are wholly out of place. Nobunaga scowls, grinding her teeth in frustration. She’d left both her rifle and her katana back in the castle. All she has now is her fire, too easily loosed in recklessness and near impossible to rein in. If she could just get Hijikata’s men to break and run, that might be enough. Getting him to leave would be more difficult, but, well— it’s not like Nobunaga hasn’t had to hit someone over the head and leave them at the edge of the barrier before.

The edges of the fire-filled clearing go out with a quiet huff. Nobunaga glares at Hijikata, smoke pouring from her fingertips. Around her, the other samurai shuffle their feet and lurch between the wisps of smoke. Nobunaga doesn’t take her eyes off Hijikata. Whoever blinks first here will lose; she knows as much about staring down tigers. Even then it might be too late. If Hijikata’s already taken this personally, he might not choose to leave. A season stuck in the barrier with a madman— yes, that’s something Nobunaga would look forward to.

A blade whispers through the air to Nobunaga’s left. She turns aside to let it pass, and in that moment, Hijikata strikes, too. Nobunaga lifts a hand, reaching for his blade. No smoke or fire trail with her movement; there’s just a blur of familiar color, and then a searing pain accompanied by a different red of its own.

Nobunaga glances at her arm, at her side. Hijikata’s katana bites into her palm, a gash that widens as he yanks his sword free. Instinctively, Nobunaga reels back. The sword in her side comes loose, blood splattering on the steaming ground. As she staggers, strands of black smoke float over her shoulders and rest gently on her coat. Not smoke— hair.

No one else had come through the barrier. If there was someone in Nobunaga’s room, she’d know. They’d have to have passed her. No one could have—

But there’s someone. Someone who’d already seen that room, lived in it. _That idiot. That fool._ The half-ring of samurai around her begins to advance, emboldened by the scent of drawn blood. Like a pack of wolves, Nobunaga thinks, a garish smile flitting over her face. The wolves of Mibu, just like Okita had told her.

Okita, who’s in this forest. Nobunaga continues to stumble backwards, keeping her eyes on the line of men. Okita, who knows this forest well. If given the opportunity, she could probably find her way to the castle before Hijikata and the others could. Okita just needs to find her— Nobunaga just needs to buy her time.

Roaring with renewed fury, Nobunaga throws her arms wide, scattering blood along the ground. It ignites where it lands, torrents of flame shooting like walls towards the sky. Through the flickering, Nobunaga sees Hijikata and his men shy back at the sudden heat. She doesn’t check to see if they recover. Nobunaga’s running towards the castle at full speed, masking a howl with the clenching of her teeth as her fingers trace lines of fire over her wounds. It’s no proper treatment, but it’ll hold the blood back long enough to leave no trail. There’ll be time for that later. Once Okita is here—

Nobunaga shakes her head. She can think of reunions and the future later. Right now, she has to run. She does, fully aware of the pack of dogs racing after her heels. She runs like she had three hundred years ago, under a dark and clouded sky, the shouts of samurai echoing in her ears and the sight of a familiar banner burned against her eyes.

* * *

It’s not hard to find Nobunaga. Her presence has always been marked by smoke and fire. What Okita doesn’t expect to come across, not too far from the edge of the barrier, is the darkened patch of scorched trees and earth. Silver wisps hang like ghosts above the ground, wafting towards the castle in the distance. Okita tugs her sleeve over her hand and presses it to her face, inching onward. There’s already been a fight. Hijikata’s grown faster, deadlier than Okita ever remembers him being.

From a distance, Okita already knows something’s wrong. A column of smoke rises from Nobunaga’s castle, black and billowing, enveloping the familiar eaves that Okita used to think of as home. Hijikata’s already tracked Nobunaga down. Okita feels her throat clenching, welling up with hot iron. She tries to swallow, stifling the urge to cough. Not now. Not when she’s so close, when Nobunaga’s within reach.

The walk across the rest of the forest is no quicker than the journey there. Okita keeps to the trunks of the trees, letting them support her when she can. The wind rushing through her hair echoes in time with the heaving of her chest and the slowing of her steps. Just a little further, she tells herself. A little more to go, and then she’ll be able to stop. After everything Nobunaga has done for her, it’s the least she can do.

The front gate is a mass of fire. Okita reaches it on her last legs, stumbling from the treeline with her hands on her knees and her face slick with sweat. There’s already a cluster of men milling around it, all wearing the haori, pacing back and forth with swords drawn. Okita pushes past them all, ignoring their questions for one of her own, the only one that could possibly matter: “Is Hijikata inside?”

“He went in after that spirit,” one of them tells her. “Just jumped through the fire like he didn’t feel it.”

“He went by himself?” Okita quivers at the knees, sucking breaths through tight-clenched teeth. There’s more smoke and ash than breathable air, and all Okita manages to do is make herself more light-headed. Even if she could stand and go the rest of the way, the courtyard and the castle are eclipsed by fire: angry orange flickering up the sides and along every burnable inch, Honnouji given form in the present day.

“Do you think if he kills it, the fire will stop?” One of the samurai says behind her.

“Maybe,” another one replies. “But didn’t you hear what he called it?”

Okita shakes her head, clearing out her mind. Already the others’ words sound distant, although that might be the smoke getting to her, too. There has to be a way she can reach Nobunaga’s room. Try as she might, nothing comes to mind. There had been nothing below Nobunaga’s balcony but a few wooden support struts and a sheer drop down the side. Of course. Modeled after the wartime fortresses Nobunaga had known, there’d be no reason for her to think of easier ways to get in. But there has to be a way. Okita clenches her fist, grinds her teeth into her lip. Her eyes blink back the sting of salt, and she tells herself it’s a reaction to the smoke. Okita gasps out a cough, a guttural sound lost in the crackling of the flames. So close to Nobunaga, this can’t be the end. If she could just find a way through— what she would give to feel the gentle strum of Nobunaga’s fingers over her cheek—

Okita’s eyes snap wide open, fixated on the fire. There was a time when fire had touched her, yet hadn’t burned. Nobunaga, crouched over her futon; arms wrapped tight around her shoulders and carrying her up the highest stair. Nobunaga, for all her fire and fury, had never once hurt Okita with it. If she could just think of Okita— maybe there’d be the slightest chance that with Hijikata’s arrival, she would have thought of Okita.

There’s no way for Okita to tell Nobunaga she’s here. Even if she’d had the strength to shout, her voice would be drowned out by the sound of the fire and the fight no doubt raging on the upper floors. All Okita can do is will herself forward, one step at a time, towards the angry sea of red.

“Hey, wait!” One of the samurai behind Okita makes a grab for her kimono. She feels his fingers brush the back of her obi; Okita keeps walking. Maybe, at worst, if this doesn’t work, Nobunaga will sense something’s wrong. As long as one of them finds the other, that’s all Okita needs. Through bleary eyes, she sees the ground bare itself before her sandals, licks of flame curling away from her feet. To her back, the flames close in over the space she’d been, cutting off the others’ entrance. The fire yields only for Okita. Even the smoke and heat seem to flow around her as she continues through the courtyard, between the charred bamboo plants and the scorched riverbed, up the blackened and crumbling walkway to the stairs.

Once recognizable passages all look the same: fire crawling along the underbelly of the ceiling, black smoke choking hallways illuminated only by burning embers. It’s memory more than anything that carries Okita through it all. Up one stair, down the leftmost corridor, up another flight. The billowing smoke curls like water around a rock as Okita passes, unwilling to touch her. Something, be it fate or something as simply profound as Nobunaga’s affection, keeps Okita unchallenged.

She finds Hijikata at the base of the last stairwell, blocked off by a wall of unyielding fire. This, Okita feels the heat of even from down the hall. Hijikata, undaunted, stands a few arms’-lengths away from it, sword out, likewise pacing like his men. He looks to be a wild wolf, eyes glimmering with the thrill of a hunt unfinished, his prey quivering behind a single obstacle. His gaze snaps to Okita as she approaches, and his smile is a predator’s bare-fanged growl.

“Okita,” he says to greet her. “You’re recovered already?”

“I came to warn you,” Okita gasps out. She has to draw her sword and plant it in the wood to keep upright. Coming so far so quickly is taking its toll on her, lack of smoke in her lungs or not. “Nobunaga— she can’t be hurt. She can’t be killed.”

“Maybe not when she was hunting you,” Hijikata says. “But she turned human when we saw her in the forest. We made her bleed— she retreated to this castle and set it ablaze, but that won’t stop her from facing the Shinsengumi’s justice. Once the rafters above this stairwell come down, I’ll have a way up there.”

“You…” In the darkness, it’s easy to miss how Okita’s eyes widen even further. “You hurt her?”

“I cut her hand,” Hijikata tells her. “One of the others got a piece of her side. Even if she hasn’t bled out yet, there’s nothing she can do with just her left hand.”

“No,” Okita mumbles. She isn’t quite sure what she means; whether it’s a quiet plea to Hijikata, or else to Nobunaga to be safe. It’s barely left her lips when there’s a creaking from the upper floor, the gentle whoosh of a door being slid aside. Nobunaga peers out into the hall, sword clenched in her left hand, bloodied and fully human.

“Okita?” she hears the fires whisper.

“Nobu,” Okita replies. She doesn’t speak Nobunaga’s name so much as it’s drawn out of her, the fire pulling it from her chest like it sucks up excess air. Hijikata only spares Okita a brief and puzzled glance before rushing the stairs, katana held out in front of him, relentlessly hacking at the air. “Hijikata, wait!”

Hijikata doesn’t stop. He runs at the wall of fire, its heat barely staggering him. Through the curling air, Okita sees Nobunaga’s jaw clench: a wave of her hand, and the fire parts to let Hijikata through unscathed, their swords meeting in the space above the stairs. Almost instantly, Nobunaga starts to lose ground. She’s never been the best swordsman; three hundred years has left her out of practice, and she’s lost her dominant hand. It’s all she can do to match the frenzy of Hijikata’s attacks. Okita runs after them both, sheathing her sword, scrambling up the stairs after Hijikata. No longer does she fear something as simple as being thought a deserter. She can hardly stand to imagine the fire around her dying, Nobunaga sinking to the floor with it, taking with her final breaths something far more precious to Okita than anything in the outside world.

If there’s one thing saving Nobunaga, it’s that she knows Okita’s moves. Their echoes shine through Hijikata’s, although the strokes are wider, harder. The clutter in her room is easy for her to traverse, but not so for Hijikata. He stumbles over broken rifle pieces and slashes at handfuls of ash and dust that Nobunaga flings at him. As Okita moves into the room, she catches a glimpse of blue amidst the red: her haori, folded neatly on their futon, the only space in the room not swallowed by fire.

Hijikata backs Nobunaga against the far wall, makes another swipe with his blade. Nobunaga throws herself to the side, narrowly escaping back towards the door. She must see Okita there; she must know why Okita’s come. There’ll be only one chance at this. Otherwise, this will have to be settled by the sword, and Okita knows there’s no way she could raise her blade against either Hijikata or Nobunaga.

Okita steps closer to them, reaching out for Nobunaga. She grabs Nobunaga by the wrist as she passes, yanking her behind her body. Hijikata, sword lifted over his shoulder, skids to a stop. He hardly lowers his blade as he growls, “Okita. Move.”

“Hijikata.” Okita can feel Nobunaga moving behind her; a squeeze with all the strength she can muster gets Nobunaga to settle down. “You don’t have to do this. It’s been almost three centuries. She hasn’t hurt anyone who’s passed through here. There’s nothing she can do out there in our world. Just let her be.”

“I don’t know what lies that creature has told you, but she’s a threat.” Hijikata’s blade glimmers with his fury, the same vivid red surrounding them all. “Look at where we are. If she unleashed this kind of power in Kyoto—”

“She won’t,” Okita says. “She’s changed. She doesn’t have any army, she doesn’t have anyone else she knows. She just wants to be able to live. Is that so wrong?”

“If we let her go, maybe the next we’ll hear is that someone using Oda Nobunaga’s name has raised an army in Kyoto. Is that something you want on your conscience?”

“Nobu wouldn’t do that!” Okita shouts, and she knows she’s gone too far. Hijikata’s eyes narrow; Nobunaga pulls Okita back, trying to push her out of the way.

“Okita,” Nobunaga mutters to her. “Okita, just let this happen.”

“No.” Okita tugs on Nobunaga’s arm, trying to pull her away. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You gave that to me so I could remember you, not so you’d get hunted down—”

“Oda,” Hijikata rumbles, lifting his katana again. Its blade glints in the crimson light, what might be fire or blood trailing from its edge. “What have you done with my captain?”

“Nothing that you think you know!” Nobunaga raises her sword as well, trying to shake off Okita’s grasp. “You think I’ve been hurting her; do you know what you’ve done? You’re the reason she couldn’t sleep well when she got here, because she was so worried you’d kill her for getting trapped in here!”

“Is that all?” Hijikata scoffs. “You eavesdrop on a few dreams and you think you know the measure of a person?”

“I know her far better than you do!” Nobunaga snaps. “Enough to know how much faith she had in you not to condemn her when she went back. But having her back wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to come and do your duty, because that’s all you ever think of—”

“I will not hear of duty from the likes of you!”

Hijikata’s sword thrusts cleanly through the air. All Okita can manage is to shout Nobunaga’s name, to pull at her with the last of her strength. Both she and Nobunaga topple backwards onto the smoldering floor, the fire around them vanishing all at once. It’s just for a moment. It’s back a second later, approaching a pure whiteness with its light, sheer anger and grief poured out in torrents as the castle responds to the cry of Nobunaga’s soul.

“Nobu,” Okita gasps. Her fingers fumble mindlessly with the collar of Nobunaga’s coat. “Nobu, I’m fine.” A bubble of blood forms on her lips and bursts, coating her chin with red. “I’m alive. Nobu, I’m alive.”

“You idiot,” Nobunaga says to her. Through the heat haze swimming around them, she sees Hijikata being driven back by the intensity of the inferno. She doesn’t care; he’s hardly worth a thought. Okita is bleeding in her arms. Okita, with Hijikata’s katana sticking out from her chest, is struggling to even keep her eyes open.

“‘M fine,” Okita mumbles again. “Just…”

“No.” Nobunaga’s hand finds hers, grips it tight. “Don’t you dare fall asleep, Okita. Just— just hang on.”

“Nobu.” Okita’s voice comes out choked with red. Her lung, Nobunaga realizes. Hijikata cut down to the lung, pierced it. “Nobu…”

“Just focus on breathing,” Nobunaga tells her. In her time, she was no medic, but she’d seen enough in her lifetime to know what fire can do. “Even breaths. Hang on.” Nobunaga yanks her hat off, balling it up enough for it to fit between Okita’s jaws. “Bite down. It’ll hurt for a little bit. Just don’t fall asleep, whatever you do. Understand me?”

Okita nods, the slightest incline of her head. Nobunaga nods in turn, passing a hand through Okita’s hair. It’s a sentimental gesture, but not needless. Not to Nobunaga. “Okay,” Nobunaga says, wrapping her hand around Hijikata’s sword. “Hold on.”

With a gentle tug, Nobunaga pulls the sword from Okita’s body. As soon as it’s clear, she’s tossing it through the fire and out of sight; she thinks she might hear it land and skid across the floor, but she doesn’t care. Her focus is on the rift in Okita’s chest and what lies beneath it, what she must do. A burst of fire to draw out the air. Two more pinpoint applications of heat. So little time to think, and none at all to hesitate.

She’s aware of Hijikata regrouping, preparing for a second attempt on her makeshift barrier. She hears the shift of Okita’s breath, the gasp of _Nobu_ fading from her lips. Now is not the time for failure. Her fingers slide beneath Okita’s kimono, already growing slick with blood. They press against her wound: Nobunaga doesn’t feel the first peal of fire, but she’s sure Okita does. Okita shudders against her; Nobunaga holds her still. “Don’t move,” she murmurs, her voice a balm to Okita’s ears. “Just a little longer.”

Two more tiny bursts of flame jut from Nobunaga’s fingertip. Okita quivers in her arms, then goes still. She takes a few breaths: short at first, then longer, the spark of awareness returning to her eyes. “Nobu,” she whispers, reaching up to caress Nobunaga’s face. In spite of their surroundings, the fire eating away around them, Nobunaga allows it.

“Okita,” she says, fondness folded into exasperation. “Souji. You’re such an idiot. You realize that?”

“Your fault,” Okita mumbles, tugging at Nobunaga’s coat. Nobunaga obliges, hefting Okita in her arms so Okita can nuzzle under her chin, a relieved and quiet sigh escaping her. “I leave you alone for three hours, and everything goes to hell.”

“And who sent the problem here, I wonder?” Nobunaga smiles, touching her forehead to Okita’s. Obscured by the curtain of her hair, her flames continue to diminish, quenched with the fading of her worries. Nobunaga doesn’t notice until the floorboards creak beside her, the rush of flames giving way to Hijikata leaping through them, embers trailing off his haori. There’s no time for Nobunaga to do anything other than glance up.

Hijikata stops. “Okita,” he says. “Get out of the way.” Okita just shakes her head. She doesn’t trust her voice enough to speak, but this she has the strength to do. She keeps a tight hold on Nobunaga’s shoulders, refusing to move. Around them, the room goes quiet. The last jets of flame leaking through the floorboards dissipate into wisps of smoke fleeing through the open balcony door. Hijikata brandishes his sword, looping it slowly through the air in front of him.

“Hijikata,” Okita says. The faintest hint of blood tickles the back of her throat, but nothing more. Breathing comes easier to her now. She takes it in deep, feels her chest swell to fill the space between Nobunaga’s arms. Hijikata watches her, the glint in his eyes fading with the dimming of the room. Now the only shine in them is what comes from the sun: to Okita and Nobunaga both, he’s no longer a wolf. He’s simply a man, unspeakably tired, surveying a quarry that poses no threat.

“You really think she cares for you?” Hijikata asks. Without hesitating, Okita nods. Hijikata’s reaction is nothing more than the slightest dip of his chin. To Okita, it speaks of volumes of surprise and acknowledgement. “If we leave her alone, you’ll have to be responsible for whatever she decides to do.”

“I know,” Okita says. “And it’s fine. I can handle her.”

“Can you?” Nobunaga laughs, unhelpfully. Okita’s fist connects with her shoulder— Nobunaga’s lip juts out, pouting as she rubs her arm. “Owww.”

“Don’t come complaining to me in a year when she proves too unruly.” Hijikata doesn’t sheathe his blade right away. He angles it to catch the sun, directing it in Nobunaga’s eyes, as if to make a point he couldn’t otherwise. “I’m taking my men back to Kyoto. I expect you in my office no later than an hour past sundown. Really,” Hijikata scoffs. “Spending a whole day chasing ghost stories.”

Hijikata sheathes his sword as he leaves the room. The thump of his footsteps resonate down the now empty and smoking staircase.

“What was that about?” Nobunaga asks.

“Hijikata’s always been good at reading people,” Okita tells her. Though Hijikata’s gone, she doesn’t disentangle herself from Nobunaga. If anything, she seems to hold tighter to her, as if trying to soak up every last bit of her presence. “I guess… I kind of gave things away.”

“I mean, you calling me ‘Nobu’ right off the bat didn’t help any, did it?”

“Shut up,” Okita whispers. Her forehead thumps hard against Nobunaga’s chest, sending her to the ground.

“Ah, Okitaaaa—”

Okita doesn’t bother to repeat herself. She tugs on Nobunaga’s shoulders, pulling herself up, mouth covering Nobunaga’s. Their kiss tastes of smoke and ash and iron, but it’s nothing they’re not used to. To Nobunaga, it’s simply the aftertaste of battle; to Okita, it’s every bit Nobunaga.

“You shouldn’t have come back.” Nobunaga runs a hand through Okita’s hair, working out the tangles and fragments of snagged twigs. “Look at you. You’re a mess. Can you even stand right now?”

“No,” Okita admits. She’d spent her last bits of strength getting between Hijikata and Nobunaga. She could try and rise on her wobbly legs, but she knows she wouldn’t last long. Maybe half a flight of stairs, if she’s lucky. She lifts her hand; her fingers find Nobunaga’s face, covering her mouth before she can begin to speak. “Don’t tell me I was being stupid. I couldn’t let you two kill each other.”

“I was doing fine until you showed up,” huffs Nobunaga. “If it were anyone but you…”

“I’m getting a lot of that today.”

Nobunaga laughs, the sound loud and sudden. It swells to fill the room and leaks into the air outside, joined soon after by the harmony of Okita’s muted giggles.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me?” Nobunaga says to her. “Your commander wouldn’t know until it’s too late.”

“And the next time the passage opens, he’ll storm this place again for sure.”

“Ah, don’t be such a spoilsport.” Nobunaga squirms free of Okita, rolling onto her side. “I was only kidding.”

“If that’s a joke, you’re losing your touch.” Okita reaches out, finger extended and aimed at Nobunaga’s nose. Nobunaga bats it away, grasping at Okita’s wrists, letting the force of her momentum carry her, taking Okita up in her arms and flipping onto her back. Perhaps it’s a trick of the afternoon shadows, but her eyes seem softer: less red, perhaps more golden-brown in hue.

“Alright,” Nobunaga says quietly. “I think we’ve given them enough of a head start. It’s time we got you back where you belong.”

“Nobu—”

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? If you don’t go back, that crazed vice-commander friend of yours is going to hunt the both of us down.” Nobunaga grins, scooping Okita up in her arms and shuffling to her feet. “I’d rather not live that experience a second time.”

“And…” Okita struggles to speak, not because of any pain in her throat, but for a lack of words. “What about you? You’re still…”

“Just come and visit me sometime.” Nobunaga nudges the door aside with her foot, steps into the hall. It looks untouched by the fire that had raged there just minutes earlier, as pristine as the day Nobunaga had first taken Okita into her castle. “Or think of me during the Bon festival so I can get some real booze.”

“Will that really be enough for you?”

“I’ve made it this far already, haven’t I?”

Okita’s reply is a low hum, emitted into the side of Nobunaga’s neck. She curls up against Nobunaga, letting the sway of her stride rock her into a state resembling sleep. She doesn’t quite shut her eyes— the courtyard passes her by as a blur, grey and verdant green— and then they’re in the forest. Nobunaga carries Okita slowly, trying not to jostle her. She’s being silly, Okita wants to tell her. She’s worrying over something nonexistent. The weight in Okita’s chest is gone, replaced by a foreign sort of lightness. She’s tired, still, but that’s expected: she’d just come so far through the forest, only to have to drag herself back.

The forest passes as a faint memory. Sometime in it, Nobunaga might’ve been humming the Atsumori. Okita isn’t sure. The only thing she’s certain of is when Nobunaga’s steps slow to a halt, the familiar bark-stripped clearing surrounding them both. “Well,” Nobunaga says to her. “Here’s your stop. One-way trip only.”

“Nobu—”

“Ah, we said our goodbyes earlier already, didn’t we? Hey, didn’t you say that Hijikata person reads a bunch of romance novels? When you get back, give him a scolding for ruining our moment. Really, we had a good one, and he had to go and mess it up—”

Okita doesn’t bother to try and interject. She turns in Nobunaga’s grasp, sliding out onto the ground, and throws her arms around Nobunaga’s shoulders. The give in her knees sends her sinking to the ground, but Nobunaga catches her. Of course Nobunaga would catch her. Her palm cups Okita’s cheek; their wistful sighs merge into a single breath.

“Are you sure you can’t come with me?”

“We already tried this, Okita.” Nobunaga lifts a hand, swiping it at the air in front of her. “This is the farthest I can—”

Nothing. No resistance. Nobunaga takes a small step forward, hand extended curiously. Still nothing. “Uh,” she says.

“You were saying?”

“Maybe the barrier moved?” Nobunaga takes a few more steps, larger ones. When that fails to get a reaction, she gathers herself up and leaps— the spectacular impact with an invisible force that she’d expected never comes.

“You look ridiculous,” Okita tells her.

“Say that to my face,” Nobunaga retorts. “I may let you get away with more than most, but at the end of the day, I’m still the— huh.” Nobunaga examines the back of her hand, turning it one way, then the other. She’d called for the fire of Honnouji just then, but nothing had come. A roll of the wrist, a snap of the fingers produces nothing but empty air.

“Nobu?”

“I think…” Nobunaga presses her hands to her body, as if testing it for cracks or holes. “I think I’m back to normal,” she says. “If I’m outside the barrier, I must be.”

“You’re…? But, how?” Okita glances back over her shoulder, and her question answers itself. Hijikata. It would have to be. He knows nothing of Nobunaga himself, but his trust in Okita has seen no reason to waver. If Okita thinks Nobunaga deserving of this chance, he’ll listen, and he’ll turn Kondo’s ear to it, too. “Hijikata…”

“Ah, look at me! I’m squishy, but for real now! I can eat all those things you told me about and dance the Atsumori and—” Nobunaga pauses mid-step, arms raised comically over her head. “Hey, Okita,” she says. “We’re back by the road.”

They are: a break in the trees reveals an expanse of cleared land and tamped-down dirt, the one thing both Nobunaga and Okita can recognize. As one, they turn back towards the way they’d come. The land is unfamiliar, knurls of dirt rising from where none had been, missing trees accounting for unrecognized ones. The clearing they’d just been in is gone, too. No longer do the eaves of Nobunaga’s castle peek above the sky.

“Oh,” Nobunaga murmurs. The irony of it all strikes her. She, an avid pursuer of change, having lived in one place for so long as to have thought of it as home. Immediately, she turns to Okita. “Okita, you’ve got room in your futon for two, right?”

“If Hijikata lets you stay with me,” Okita jabs at her.

“He’ll have to!” Nobunaga declares. “I’m good for your morale. And I take care of you too, mhm. Nobunaga and Okita, we’re a package deal.”

“More like your probation officer,” Okita groans.

“Don’t sound like that! Some things just can’t be helped.” Nobunaga stoops down again, grasping Okita around the shoulders and beneath her knees. Okita yelps as Nobunaga lifts her, effortless as ever. “What better way to keep an eye on me than to have me stay with you, anyway?”

“You’ve planned this all along,” Okita mumbles. “You fiend.”

“I am innocent and have done no such thing.”

“I know. I’m only joking.”

Okita smiles at Nobunaga and is met with an even wider one. The sun glints off Nobunaga’s teeth as she sets her course for Kyoto, the sprawling city bigger than she remembers it, pushing past the banks of the two rivers and up into the hills. As always, Okita’s head comes to rest in the crook of Nobunaga’s shoulder. This time, Okita doesn’t sleep. Her eyes stay fixed on Nobunaga’s face, brimming with wonder at each new thing: the multitude of bridges crossing the rivers like stitches, the silhouette of the rebuilt Imperial Palace. This is not the world that Okita remembers, but no longer is she alone in her return in it (no longer is she alone).

Her hand caresses Nobunaga’s cheek. Nobunaga turns at once, pauses in her tracks. “You know if you keep stopping me like this, we’ll never get anywhere,” she says.

“Hijikata said we have until past sundown,” Okita replies. Her fingers brush the back of Nobunaga’s neck, urging her closer. “We have time.”

That they do. Okita’s lips envelop Nobunaga’s grin. They don’t know how long they stay there, only that Nobunaga’s arms give out halfway, setting Okita unsteadily on her legs. Even the sun’s passage seems to slow, shadows quivering and refusing to lengthen. Though it’s impossible that they’ve brought Nobunaga’s world with them, it certainly feels that way. Perhaps, somehow, they have. Perhaps it’s in their kiss, their touch, the way they run laughing from the hillsides with the setting sun against their backs, descending into an unfamiliar sea of glittering lantern light.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [F(A/I)LL](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22707694) by [Xairathan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/pseuds/Xairathan)




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